Kansas City charter is ordered to return millions to the state

A Jackson County judge ordered the shuttered Renaissance Academy charter school to pay back $2.6 million in state education funds for public schools in Kansas City.

Missouri will divide the money among the public district’s schools and charter schools, based on criteria in the state formula for funding schools.

“We have not gotten it yet,” said Al Tunis, interim superintendent for Kansas City Public Schools. But, he said, when the money does come — and he has no idea how much it will be — “we have to be careful that we don’t invest it in a recurring expense.”

The K-12 charter school was sponsored by the University of Missouri when the charter school’s board of trustees opted to close it in May 2012.

The school, which served more than 1,000 students at the time it closed, had been managed by Imagine Schools until the charter’s board severed ties with the school management company after four years of operation.

The board operated the school in its fifth and final year. When the school closed, there was money left over.

“The question was whose money was it,” said Deborah Carr, executive director of MU charter school operations.

The school closed shortly before a state law took effect designating how to handle leftover funds from a closed public charter. The current law says the money goes back to the state.

But as a nonprofit entity, the charter’s board believed it could distribute the money to another nonprofit, Carr said. Renaissance sued the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

The court ruled in favor of the state.

“The department is pleased these funds will go directly toward helping our children in Kansas City,” said Missouri Commissioner of Education Margie Vandeven.

The department announced Thursday that all the funds were returned to the state by last month.

“In the end, we needed this ruling,” Carr said. “It’s a positive thing because it gives us a clear picture of how to handle such fiduciary situations in the future.”

This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Kansas City charter is ordered to return millions to the state."