TN comptroller cites vague state guidance

A state agency that set out to determine whether charter schools in the state receive fair funding determined in a report released Tuesday that it was impossible to tell because of vague, inconsistent state laws and funding policies from the Department of Education and the State Board of Education.

“Local school districts have kind of been doing their own thing based on the guidance they receive, which isn’t always clear,” said John Dunn, spokesman for the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury, which produced the report.

Dunn said the report came after the Senate Education Committee asked his office to look into whether charter schools, which are public, receive the proper amounts of money. The answer is tobe-determined, the report says, because the state has not provided sufficient or clear guidance for districts on how to distribute money to charter schools.

“It doesn’t sound like it would be a large ask, but I think we found it’s something that’s lacking right now in Tennessee,” Dunn said.

He gave an example of a practice that could vary district to district: whether per-pupil funding is distributed based on last year’s enrollment or the current year’s.

Dunn said the report did not find “any kind of impropriety with this situation,” but without clear laws and policies from the state, it was “hard for us to say for certain that all charter schools were receiving the amount that they were supposed to be.”

The Tennessee Department of Education said in a statement that Education Commissioner Candice McQueen is required by the recently updated school funding law to develop a system for local districts to report revenues by individual schools.

“We will be engaging with stakeholders across all school sectors as we begin this work to provide greater fiscal transparency,” the statement said.

State Sen. Brian Kelsey, R-Germantown, said he was surprised the comptroller’s office was unable to say whether charter schools were funded fairly, but added it’s less surprising considering charters and school districts have long had conflicting sentiments on the issue.

Kelsey, a member of the Senate Education Committee, said he expects the education department to provide remedies to the concerns raised in the comptroller’s report, but if not, the legislature could consider changes to the law.

“I think we’ve identified the problem; now we have to make sure it’s corrected,” he said.

The report comes at a time when Shelby County Schools is working on its relationships with the 45 charter schools under its jurisdiction.

The district has a committee working on a Charter Compact that will outline procedures in the district’s dealings with charter schools, and may bring in national consultants to refine local policies on approval and revocation of charters.