Marin education officials are referring details about Ross Valley Charter’s $270,000 federal coronavirus relief loan to the state for review.
Bob Henry, a lawyer representing the Marin County Office of Education, said he has sent the materials to the state Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team, known as FCMAT. He is asking the agency staff to see if they would recommend that Marin County Superintendent of Schools Mary Jane Burke conduct an audit of the charter’s finances and its application for the loan.
“It’s a fairly narrow referral,” Henry said Wednesday. “We are asking them to please review and advise as to whether any state education codes should be invoked in terms of proceeding with an audit.”
Henry said there were at least four potential education codes that could be potentially affected. Those include statutes involving such items as “duty to superintend,” “oversee fiscal accountability,” or “monitor charter management,” Henry said.
“At this point, we’re making no judgment,” Henry added. “We’re just asking FCMAT to take a look at this.”
Henry said he has submitted to FCMAT a 10-page letter, with 90 pages of attachments, prepared by Ross Valley School District attorney Sue Ann Salmon Evans. The letter details her findings regarding the charter school’s application process for a $270,000 federal Paycheck Protection Program loan through the Small Business Administration.
In the letter, Evans alleges possible misconduct involving the application process and the charter’s financial documentation.
“It is clear that RVC’s PPP loan was not obtained through the proper and required approval process, nor for the stated purposes of the PPP funding,” states the letter, which asks Burke to conduct an audit of the charter school. Evans alleges the misconduct included: “false statements to the federal government in the PPP loan process”; “false statements to the public and in RVC’s resolution;” and “falsification of documents to conceal facts.”
Henry has also submitted to FCMAT a four-page rebuttal letter from Sharon Sagar, the Ross Valley Charter board president. Sagar has called the Ross Valley School District allegations “false and completely without merit” and says they are all disproved by the attachments the district provided.
“We look forward to our opportunity to demonstrate to FCMAT that the allegations made by the Ross Valley School District are false and unsubstantiated,” Sagar said Wednesday. “We are confident that a review of our actions and documents will show this.”
Henry has asked Sagar to submit any further responses to him by Friday. He said he would review the additional materials and then forward them to FCMAT.
“Due to the nature of the allegations, the Marin County Office of Education considers ‘time to be of the essence’ with respect to this matter,” Henry said in an email sent to both the school district and the charter school.
District officials said they asked Evans to look into the PPP loan process as part of their due diligence prior to a hearing later this year on the charter’s pending five-year renewal petition. Anne Capron, president of the Ross Valley School District board of trustees, said that fiscal matters could be taken into consideration as part the renewal petition decision.
“We can’t ignore what appear to be documented violations of federal law,” she said.
The district rescheduled a special meeting on the issue from Tuesday night to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday after an accidental omission of public comments on the published agenda for Tuesday.
Wednesday night’s agenda remains the same, which is to consider a vote on a potential notice of violation against the charter school regarding the PPP loan process.
