US charter school dismisses audit's claims of financial wrongdoing
The Fulton Science Academy (FSA), a charter school established by Turkish entrepreneurs in the US state of Georgia, has denied allegations in a report prepared by a consultant for the Fulton County School System, suggesting that the school improperly granted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts to businesses and groups, many of them with ties to the Hizmet movement.
In a statement on Wednesday, the FSA noted that the report is incomplete, contains multiple inaccuracies and was not prepared under Generally Accepted Auditing Principles (GAAP). The statement also claimed the report does not express any opinions on the FSA's compliance with relevant laws, rules, guidelines or guidance.
The audit released on Tuesday by the Fulton County Schools claims that the schools made purchases such as T-shirts, teacher training and video production services from organizations with connections to school officials or followers of prominent Turkish scholar Fethullah Gülen.
The FSA's statement said the audit report concerns operational matters that the FSA and the Fulton County School System have previously addressed to the satisfaction of the school system.
"We intend to provide a more formal response to the school system on the major issues in the near future. We are particularly disappointed that the school system did not provide the FSA an opportunity to review or comment on the report before publicly releasing it. If it had done so, as set forth in its own audit procedures, we believe that many, if not most, of the points outlined in the report would not have been an issue at all," the statement said.
The FSA's statement also recalled that the school has been audited nine times over the past 10 years by independent auditing firms and that each of those audits, which are publicly available, reflects that the financial statements of the school were fairly stated in all material respects.
"As a Fulton County charter school for 10 years, the FSA and its students have achieved tremendous results. The FSA is the only National Blue Ribbon Charter School in Georgia. There has never been a finding of impropriety by the FSA in all the years of its operation," noted the statement.
The blue ribbon is an indication of something of high quality.
The FSA said it is distressed by the school system's consultant's "incomplete" and "inaccurate report" and that it will provide a more formal response to the school system, after they have had a chance to review and analyze the report in more detail.
The FSA has requested the media to respect the privacy of the individual students and parents who are identified in the report.
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