Epic fail? Audit yields more questions on public money

Sunday, October 4, 2020

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COMMENTARY

Well, we have some more epic news this week (the lowercase use of the word counts double here, see), and I’m a little … confused.

After an audit of their finances from the last five years by State Auditor and Inspector Cindy Byrd, it appears Epic Charter Schools may owe the state of Oklahoma $8.9 million. How they came to that conclusion is what I’m confused about. Reading over the investigative process, it seems there exists a spider web of businesses and boards that allocate and spend taxpayer dollars given to Epic them by the state, and many of the exact details have been kept away from the public and the investigators themselves at this time. Specifically, the private Epic Youth Services company that managers substantial taxpayer money has not had to show state investigators its equations, so to speak.

Keeping all of this straight in my head has been difficult, to say the least. Another confusing point to me is how Epic’s response was to accuse the investigation of being “political theatrics.” Again, I’m no expert, so perhaps there is something to that. But it seems a bit odd to argue that a pro-school-choice governor like Kevin Stitt would go after a pro-school-choice organization for political reasons. In any case, this ongoing story may have a few chapters left to be told. It could be … epic, or at least an epic fail.