Charter Schools and CMO Accounting & Consulting
Across our nation, charter schools are rapidly expanding educational opportunities for a growing number of students. As is often the case with groundbreaking advances, these schools face surprising resistance and unfamiliar challenges.
Meet Our Professionals
At PKF O’Connor Davies, our understanding and resources help charter school management meet accounting and regulatory compliance requirements. We also help develop and implement sustainable and effective operational solutions. Our support frees administrators to continue driving innovation in their pursuit of educational excellence.
The forward-thinking attitude of charter school pioneers is one we value, as entrepreneurs ourselves, and apply to every engagement.
The depth of our experience is evidenced by the breadth of our charter school clientele: to date we have performed audits for over 50 charter schools in New York City and Connecticut. We are pleased that authorizers often look favorably on the schools with which we work that represent a cross-section of grade levels, enrollment size, union status and missions.
Comprehensive CMO Support
Our support of Charter Management Organizations (CMOs) is extensive; we have assisted with the full range of launches, closings and conversions at both the national and state levels. In many cases, we are able to help fulfill grant requirements because we understand the intricacies of establishing CMOs to replicate schools across district boundaries and of collaborating with authorizers to merge schools into a single legal entity.
A Genuine Commitment to the Movement
To help schools attract community support, we share our experience interacting with high visibility constituencies, authorizers and regulators. To equip board members with analytics that support sound decision making, we conduct annual in-depth ratio and benchmark analyses comparing an individual school with others. To help administrators assure fair consideration and procedural integrity, we monitor admission lotteries. Our specialists even volunteer for our client schools’ mentorship programs.
Our services for charter schools and CMOs include:
Assurance and Tax Services
- Audits in accordance with U.S. Generally Accepted Auditing Standards (GAAS), U.S. Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (Yellow Book) and OMB Uniform Guidance (Single Audits)
- Agreed-Upon Procedures Management Letter Issuance
- Fiscal Policy and Procedure Evaluation and Recommendation
- Preparation of Annual Federal and State Information Returns
- Audits of Employee Benefits Plans
- Monitoring of admission lotteries to assure equitable treatment and procedural propriety
Advisory Services
- Board Education and Governance
- Management Workshops
- Cybersecurity
- IT Consulting
- Management Advisory