AB 84: Targeting Charter Schools While Ignoring Millions in District Fraud

Why are California lawmakers preparing to spend $1 billion over the next decade on a brand-new bureaucracy to oversee charter schools — while turning a blind eye to the financial scandals plaguing traditional school districts?

Assembly Bill 84 proposes to create a costly, duplicative state agency with the sole purpose of scrutinizing charter schools. The annual price tag: $100 million. The target: a public education sector already subject to some of the strictest oversight in the state.

This is not a serious approach to protecting taxpayer dollars. If it were, lawmakers would be addressing the chronic fraud, waste, and mismanagement in traditional school districts — the very districts AB 84 exempts from its new regime. Over the past decade, these districts have repeatedly been at the center of corruption cases, budget meltdowns, and misused funds that have siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from students. We’ve seen school executives jailed in “pay-to-play” schemes, multimillion-dollar bond frauds, whistleblower payouts, and massive deficits that threaten basic operations. These aren’t isolated incidents — they form a disturbing pattern across the state.

Yet instead of strengthening the systems that already exist to prevent such abuses, AB 84 doubles down on bureaucracy. Former California State Auditor Elaine Howle — who spent 21 years as the state’s top watchdog — has warned that creating a new statewide oversight body with investigative and audit authority “would likely cost the State hundreds of millions of dollars and take years to implement.” She urged lawmakers to do the obvious: fix the oversight agencies we already have.

California is not lacking in oversight tools. The Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), the State Controller’s Office, and local county offices of education all have the authority to review the finances of both charter and traditional schools. The problem is not a lack of agencies. It’s the failure to use them consistently and fairly.

AB 84 ignores this reality. By targeting charter schools alone, it shifts the political conversation away from the far greater losses happening in traditional districts. It punishes a public school option that offers parents choice, fosters innovation, and frequently delivers better outcomes for students — all while consuming fewer taxpayer dollars per pupil than many district-run schools.

The hypocrisy is hard to miss. Lawmakers claim AB 84 is about “accountability,” yet the bill deliberately avoids holding accountable the systems where most of the fraud and waste actually occur. Taxpayers are left footing the bill for an expensive new agency that will not solve the underlying problem.

Over ten years, AB 84 will drain $1 billion away from classrooms, teachers, and direct student support. That money could be invested in proven programs, teacher training, and critical student services. Instead, it will be spent building an oversight empire that duplicates existing functions and diverts resources from the students who need them most.

The choice before the Legislature is simple: fund students, not bureaucracy. It’s time to reject AB 84 and demand real accountability for all schools — district and charter alike. Anything less is just politics at the expense of California’s kids and taxpayers.