Auditor General DePasquale Launches Look at Funding for Charter Curriculum Management Company
Auditor General DePasquale Launches Look at Funding for Charter Curriculum Management Company
Full accounting needed for millions of taxpayer dollars going to Lincoln Learning Solutions
HARRISBURG (April 17, 2019) – Auditor General Eugene DePasquale today said he ordered his team to review public education funding going to the Beaver County based Lincoln Learning Solutions, an offshoot of PA Cyber Charter School.
“My audit of the PA Cyber Charter School found that more than $110 million of taxpayer money the school received was going directly to Lincoln Learning Solutions for curriculum services which were repeatedly delayed,” DePasquale said, adding that based on recent IRS forms, a substantial amount of Lincoln Learning Solutions’ revenues are from the publicly funded PA Cyber Charter School.
“I want to see how much public funding this non-profit receives, how much of it is spent on helping students and how much goes to salaries and administrative costs.”
Lincoln Learning Solutions is a non-profit corporation founded by Nicholas Trombetta to provide curriculum services to the PA Cyber Charter School. DePasquale’s 2016 audit of PA Cyber revealed that Lincoln Learning Solutions missed three out of four deadlines to deliver curriculum for students.
“Taxpayers deserve a full accounting of every education dollar going to this non-profit corporation,” he said, noting that today his office is requesting a myriad of documents from LLS. “I want to ensure that every available taxpayer dollar is going into the classroom, where it can most help students.”
DePasquale noted that a recent Berks County Court ruling that found another charter school, I-LEAD, was not exempt from paying property taxes points to the need for the General Assembly to resolve serious flaws in Pennsylvania’s charter school law.
Learn more about the Department of the Auditor General online at www.paauditor.gov.
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