Utah Southvalley Community School at Woodland Hills, which closed last week after revelations of bounced teachers' paychecks and troubled financial dealings of its board president, Bob Jones, received $160,477, the third-largest total disbursement of the funds granted last school year in Utah, according to the Utah Office of Education.

But no one knows how that money was spent, or where it went.

The school was founded in 1992 to serve high school students with Asperger's syndrome and other developmental and learning disorders. That emphasis moved toward sports as Jones brought in coaching staff and recruited outside students to form football and basketball teams after he was made president of the school's board of directors last summer.

Parents of special-education students, meanwhile, complained their children were being shortchanged in favor of tuition waivers given to an influx of students pursuing sports who often bullied special-needs students.

Pat Murdoch, one of the school's founders, said Jones did not file the school's taxes for 2007, casting a cloud over not just the fate of the Carson Smith money but all the school's finances.

"It would be an open book if we had them done," Murdoch said.

Even if the Carson Smith money was spent on legitimate educational needs, Angie Lavery, a secretary at the school until June, wonders if it didn't indirectly subsidize Jones' football endeavors, as athletic students received scholarships while special-education students funded the school with their tuition.

"I don't know where the money went," Lavery said. "But it wouldn't surprise me if it went toward football."

Dennis Lidell, the school's admissions director, said in April that after Jones joined the school and started a football program, the school bused the team, including coaches and the school's "food nutritionist," to Canada for three week's worth of games.

Bob Jones did not return calls for comment, nor did Mike Condie, the school's athletic director, who later became its principal.

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Too little accountability? The Carson Smith program was designed as a way to help families fund a private-school education that might better serve their children's special needs. But the fallout surrounding Utah Southvalley Community School at Woodland Hills, known as USC, now has some pointing toward Carson Smith and saying, "We told you so."

Months before the state funded the program with an initial $2.4 million and Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. signed it into law in March 2005, the pro-voucher group Education Excellence Utah argued that while it was a good start, the scholarship program's eligibility requirements should be expanded for more students. Critics warned it was a trial run for tuition tax credits disguised as a voucher program for special-education students.

"One of the concerns we have about vouchers for private schools was the lack of accountability," said Carol Lear, director of law and legislation for the State Board of Education. "There was minimal accountability in this program, and I find it a little ironic that accountability might be different for special-needs students."

In contrast to special-education programs at public schools, which require numerous assessments of student progress, Lear points out that for private schools to become eligible for Carson Smith scholarship money, they need to provide parents with just one assessment. And of the 15 requirements schools must meet to receive scholarship money, only one mentions special-education services. That requirement says the school must "disclose" to parents the special-education services their child will receive.

"We make no judgment as to whether the services are adequate," said Travis Rawlings, education specialist administrator of the Carson Smith scholarship program at the State Office of Education. "The idea behind this program is that if the school isn't meeting the students' needs, the parents will take their children elsewhere."

In the case of USC, some did just that. Nancy Murray and Kathy Leahy, a speech pathologist and pharmacist, respectively, who both live in Salt Lake City, pulled their sons out of the school last fall and then phoned the State Office of Education to stop quarterly payments of Carson Smith scholarship money.

Both won judgments in small claims court for a refund of tuition they paid above the scholarship money paid to the school, but neither have seen any money from those judgments. Murray said the school countersued her for Carson Smith scholarship money it said it would have received if her son Michael had remained in the school. Leahy said she mediated with an attorney representing the school in June to arrange for payment of her judgment on an installment plan, and was told she could expect the first payment soon because the school was about to receive Carson Smith scholarship money once USC classes began in August.

State lawmakers have fine-tuned the scholarship's original bill in small ways. Amendments two years ago by Rep. Merlynn T. Newbold, R-South Jordan, require that private schools receiving the money provide a financial audit from within the last 12 months, then submit the report to the State Board of Education. All schools must meet that deadline by May 1 to enroll students eligible for Carson Smith scholarship checks that parents sign over to their school. Ostensibly, that's a deadline USC missed.

"The school is currently under review" for Carson Smith eligibility, Rawlings told The Tribune, before news of the school's closure last Thursday.