YOUNGSTOWN — State Reps. Michele Lepore-Hagan, D-Youngstown, and Joe Miller, D-Amherst, reintroduced legislation this week requiring one-time performance audits of school districts with a current academic distress commission.

The purpose is to have audits of the three districts in Ohio under the control of academic distress commissions and chief executive officers: Youngstown, Lorain and East Cleveland.

“We are trying to find out how the CEOs have been using the school funds,” Samantha Rocco, legislative aide to Miller, said. “We want to know whether the funds are being used for the benefit of the school districts or whether they are being misappropriated.”

Miller wants to know whether the model of school governance in which the CEO has absolute power over the district’s operations is workable.

“We owe it to our teachers, parents and taxpayers across the state to get to the bottom of this issue and determine once and for all if the state takeover plan that put in place ADCs has been an abject failure and should be repealed. A performance audit by the Ohio auditor will bring us closer to this answer,” Miller said.

Lepore-Hagan said currently, under the CEO model, performance audits are not required.

“The audit would go back to the first ADC (about a decade ago), so we will follow how the money was spent from that time when it was called the Youngstown Plan,” she said.

The Youngstown Plan came about, however, because state officials were not satisfied with the academic progress being made in the Youngstown schools with the elected board of education in control. As it stands now the elected board has an advisory role to the CEO, which it opposes.

“The performance audits mandated by the bill will enable parents, teachers, residents, elected officials, and the public at large to evaluate whether those dollars are being used effectively,” Lepore-Hagan said. “Most importantly, we will be able to determine if our teachers and kids are receiving the resources and support they need to achieve and succeed.”

Lepore-Hagan emphasized if misappropriation of funds is found in any of the three school districts under the ADC / CEO model, the audit will strengthen their arguments to eliminate the law.

“Superintendents are accountable to school boards. We want local control of school districts that are accountable to taxpayers,” she said.

rsmith@tribtoday.com