Florida is home to one of the nation’s largest charter school sectors, serving more than 370,000 students in over 730 schools. Every Florida charter school must submit an annual financial audit conducted by an independent public accountant, and those audits are a key part of the sector’s commitment to transparency and public accountability.
To understand how well that process is working, the Florida Charter Institute analyzed 4,681 financial audits of 835 charter schools across 50 Florida school districts, covering 2017 to 2023. We found that, in its current form, the audit reporting system is not designed for analysis: audits use inconsistent accounting codes and formats, and are submitted as scanned images by email rather than as searchable data.
Summary of recommendations
- Require auditors to adopt Florida’s standardized accounting codes. Using the state’s uniform chart of accounts (the “Red Book”) and consistent table names would allow direct, statewide comparison of how charter schools spend on staff, instructional materials and other categories.
- Require audit reports to be submitted to a statewide electronic platform in a machine-readable format. Searchable, unsecured PDFs with standardized data files, submitted through a central portal, as Texas, California and Massachusetts already do.
- Expand financial literacy training for charter school leaders, finance staff and governing boards. Florida’s current training requirements apply only to board members; stronger requirements for school leaders and business managers would improve financial oversight at the school level.
To support ongoing analysis, FCI also built a public, web-based audit database, available at audit.flcharterinstitute.org.