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SALT LAKE CITY — American International School of Utah shuttered nearly a year ago but the Utah State Board of Education is still taking steps intended to wrap up the public charter school’s financial obligations.
The Utah State Board of Education took what its agenda described as “final action” Thursday on special education funding owed to the state by the charter school.
Earlier, the state school board encumbered nearly $425,700 of the State Charter School Board’s funding while repayment of state and federal special education funds for the 2016, 2017 and 2018 fiscal years was pending.
The state sought repayment because the funds were improperly spent or there was insufficient or no documentation to support the expenditures, state officials said at the time.
The board voted to reduce the encumbered funds to $125,000 and seek recommendations from the State Charter School Board how to address repayment of the outstanding state special education funds.
“After months of progress toward reducing the amounts owed through legal and administrative processes, the federal amount owed was paid and the remaining amount owed for state special education funds is $125,000,” a state school board memo states.
The State School Board request of the state charter board is “do they have any recommendations at all, of how to get that down to zero. How they do it, what they do, it’s an open discussion,” Utah State Board of Education Chairman Mark Huntsman said.
In May 2019, AISU’s board of directors voted to close the school after growing concerns about its financial viability.
The school had been directed to repay the special education funding but it had also struggled financially after it received and paid a $250,000 property tax bill.
After state education officials demanded repayment of special education funds, it stopped fronting the school’s monthly allotment of funding, which is the customary practice. It instead reimbursed the school for special education expenses after it provided documentation how the funding had been used.
While state officials said the change in disbursement was a matter of due diligence, AISU leaders said it made it more difficult for the school to achieve financial footing.
The K-12 school closed in June 2019 following the graduation of its senior class, and the following month the Utah State Charter School Board voted to remove the school’s executive director, Tasi Young. The board immediately appointed Utah Auditor John Dougall as the school’s interim director.
After Young’s removal, AISU’s remaining board members resigned en masse.
Dougall served as interim executive director less than a week, and Royce Van Tassell, executive director of the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools, was appointed board chairman.
Van Tassel assembled a new board of directors but they — and Van Tassell — resigned within a matter of days citing the state’s refusal to obtain liability insurance for the new board members, which was tasked to complete the school’s closure.
While the administrative functions of closure of the school continued, a handful of lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts against the school — some by state entities such as the Utah Attorney General’s Office, representing the Utah State Board of Education and the State Charter School Board on a property rights issue, and a tax lien by the Utah Tax Commission — and others by private parties.
By December, the legal actions had been dismissed.
