Whereas, The New York State Court of Appeals ruled, on Thursday, July 2, 2009, that the 2005 amendments to the state education and municipal law that call for the state comptroller to audit charter schools is unconstitutional; and
Whereas, this ruling, in reversing a lower-level court decision, states that because charter schools are not political subdivisions, they are not subject to comptroller audits nor should they be linked to the audits of the public districts whose limited funds are tapped to fund them; and
Whereas, in its ruling, the Court of Appeals cited oversight of the finances of the state’s more than 140 charter schools as the responsibility of the New York State Board of
Regents; and
Whereas, the state’s public schools are accountable not only to the Board of Regents, but to the Commissioner of Education, the state Legislature, the Attorney General, as well as to the general public; therefore be it
Resolved, that NYSUT seek full disclosure by the Board of Regents of the finances of all the New York State’s charter schools, opening the fiscal income and expenditures of these schools to the same public information and scrutiny as the state’s more than 700 public school districts.
Co-sponsored by the PSC. Passed at the NYSUT Representative Assembly, May 2010.
