Help make a Change and Receive the Rewards of Your Automobile Gifts for a California Non-Profit

1. Superintendent of Direction for the California schools, Jack O'Connell, started an audit more than a year back into the financial issues of the Options for Youth and Opportunities for Knowing (OYO) schools. The OYO is a chain of independent research study charter schools within the California schools system, which are independently run however moneyed by the state. The OYO California schools serve trainees who have actually dropped out of the standard high schools. They currently have about 15,000 trainees in 40 storefront locations across the state. These California schools students do the majority of their work at house, meeting with instructors twice a week. According to state records, student accomplishment test and high school exit examination ratings are above average, as compared to other alternative high schools within the California schools system. According to a Los Angeles Times article of August 10th, only 11 percent of OYO trainees finished during the 2003-2004 academic year. The remainder of trainees that left school that year either dropped out, were expelled, or moved to other schools. The California schools' audit was conducted by the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Group, who concluded their analysis and presented their findings in a report that was released in August 2006. The audit mentions accounting defects, overpayments by the state, disputes of interest, nepotism, extreme payment, and mixing private service issues with public schools. The OYO was founded and still operated by John and Joan Hall, previous teachers from Hollywood High School. They have completely cooperated with the California schools' audit, however dispute many of the findings. Some examples from the audit report are: • Accounting Flaws and Overpayments. The Halls count each of their teachers as 1.92 full-time positions. Their spokesperson, Stevan Allen, mentioned that this is a typical practice for charter schools in the California schools system and is a genuine method for compensating school personnel for longer days and year-round schedules. California schools superintendent O'Connell thinks teachers must be counted just as one full-time position each. The auditors disagreed, pointing out that standard California schools instructors invest much less time working each year than those at OYO. However, the auditors thought the 1.92 amount is inflated. This example, alone, accounts for over half of the $57 million overpayment. Additionally, the report noted numerous doubtful costs. One example of unrestrained spending, offered by the Times was an $18,000 staff celebration held at Disneyland. Allen safeguarded that junk car donation no title event as an effort at relationship building between team member, who are spread throughout the state. He noted that the costs was less than $50 per employee. • Disputes of Interest and Mixing Private Business with Public Schools. Besides the charter schools, the Halls own and run several private services that offer materials and services to schools. The Times noted that the Choices in OYO was the nonprofit part of the setup, with the Opportunities part being for-profit. The audit calls this practice and setup into question. • Excessive Compensation. The audit also questions the combined salaries for the Halls, which is $600,000 annually. The report states that it might be extreme for the quantity of time the couple really works. • Nepotism. The Halls developed a different charity with $10.8 million of the California schools' funding, called Pathways in Education. The charity is run by their daughter, Jamie Hall. Little money has actually been spent toward education so far. The Halls compete that they previously had asked for guidance on their operation from the California schools lots of times, but never got any reaction. Therefore, they tried to follow California schools requirements as finest they

2. might with their understanding of the policies. Even O'Connell yielded that none of the pointed out practices are prohibited. The audit recommends the California schools ought to try to recover the $57 million in overpayment from the OYO. O'Connell has sent out the report to the state's lawyer general's workplace for evaluation and any essential action.