American Preparatory Academy repeatedly refused to tell state auditors just how much it pays its top administrators — because, the charter school operator argued, its top administrators aren’t technically charter school employees.
Instead, those administrators are getting paid by a similarly named private company, American Preparatory Schools.
It works like this: The charter school operator funnels money to the company, which then cuts the paychecks. That’s according to a management contract between the two.
American Preparatory Academy argues that distinction should shield the payroll records from public view.
The money — some $31 million since 2022 — still originates from the public charter school operator, though. It’s why State Auditor Tina Cannon disagrees with that assertion and took legal action this month against the company, asking a judge to hold it in contempt.
According to the Feb. 10 petition filed in 3rd District Court, the move comes after auditors made several attempts to review the school’s financial records, demanding payroll data and itemized expenditures.
School officials opened some of their books — but refused to provide detailed records for the payments the school made to the private company since 2022, when the contract began. Instead, they disclosed only yearly “lump sum” amounts.
In response to auditors’ initial request, a school board member pushed back.
“APA does not have and is not entitled to information about the wages and benefits paid to APS’s employees,” he wrote in a Sept. 26 email. “We pay a contract price for their services.”
State auditors subpoenaed the company in December, asking once again for payroll, compensation and expenditure records, according to the petition.
On. Dec. 11 the company’s legal counsel responded, saying at the time they “did not intend to produce any records.”
Company officials ‘strongly oppose’ petition, but will comply ‘in good faith’
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) American Preparatory Academy in West Valley City is pictured during a snowstorm on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026.
On top of paying the salaries of at least eight charter executives, including an academic director, American Preparatory Schools also provides general oversight and management services across American Preparatory Academy’s nine Utah campuses.
In a Wednesday statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, American Preparatory Schools said it operates like “every other state contractor.”
For instance, the statement continued, a Utah agency may contract with a private road construction firm, and while auditors are entitled to information pertinent to the contract and end result, they are not entitled to the contractor’s “internal, proprietary financial information.”
“That is true of a wide array of state contractors — food vendors, book publishers, maintenance firms,“ officials said. ”APS should be treated no differently."
Officials added that they “strongly oppose” the state auditor’s petition, arguing Cannon is overstepping her authority.
“Utah has maintained a clear boundary between public oversight of taxpayer funds and the private financial records of independent contractors,” officials said. “APS fully supports transparency and lawful accountability, but any fundamental change in private-sector privacy should be decided by the Legislature — not created through litigation.”
But on Thursday, in a separate statement, company officials told The Tribune they will ultimately comply with the request.
“As a show of good faith and to demonstrate the success of this model of collaboration between public schools and private business — and to avoid wasting further time and resources in court — APS intends to voluntarily comply with the Auditor’s subpoena in regard APS’s contract with APA,” the new statement said. “We have reached out to the state’s attorneys and await their response.”
An official from the State Auditor’s office said they do not comment on pending legal action.
This isn’t the first time the company or charter has come under scrutiny.
In 2020, in Nevada, American Preparatory Academy Las Vegas terminated its $1.6 million contract with American Preparatory Schools after board members determined they had been paying the “education management organization” for “essentially nothing,” The Nevada Current reported.
The termination came after the school’s board had repeatedly asked American Preparatory Schools to detail how it was spending their payments. During a June 11, 2019, meeting, an APS attorney refused, telling the board, “As you know, APS is a private, for-profit company and is not required to disclose any of the information.”
In 2021, the Utah State Board of Education also ordered American Preparatory Academy to pay back $2.8 million after an audit found it had misused special education funds.
In a written response, the school denied USBE’s conclusion and asserted the money was spent on “legitimate education expenses.”
“Any documentation errors were inadvertent mistakes caused, at least in part, by confusion over the complex regulations and lack of clear guidance,” the school wrote.
Criticism of those events surfaced in 2024 when the charter attempted, but failed, to open a campus in Wyoming. American Preparatory Academy released a statement at the time, arguing it had been the target of “misrepresentation of facts, unsupported accusations and personal attacks” by people who oppose school choice.
The Utah State Charter School Board (SCSB), the largest charter school authorizer in the state, is responsible for the “oversight and evaluation” of all the charters it authorizes, including American Preparatory Academy.
In a statement, a board spokesperson directed any questions related to “audit authority, subpoenas, and compliance” to the state auditor’s office or the judiciary, because their roles are “separate” from the board’s.
They added that “we do not comment on the merits of active legal proceedings.”
“At a high level,“ the statement continued, ”charter schools in Utah are public schools, and the use of public funds carries expectations of transparency and accountability under state law."
Contract outlines some details
(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) American Preparatory Academy in West Valley City is pictured on Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026.
As public schools, generally, the only difference between a charter and a traditional public school in Utah is that charters operate independently from school districts.
Charters still receive taxpayer funds and must comply with all laws governing public education.
In 2025 alone, American Preparatory Academy received approximately $55 million in state funds, according to the petition.
Cannon argued that because American Preparatory Academy is public, it shouldn’t be “permitted to insulate the handling of those public funds from the state auditor’s review by transferring millions of public dollars to a separate entity.”
She further argues that the contract delegates “most every aspect” of school management to the private company. That includes charging its executive director and controller with “fiduciary responsibility” over all school funds and authorizing them as signatories on the school’s checking accounts.
The contract explicitly names Carolyn Sharette the company’s executive director.
Sharette was among American Preparatory Academy’s original founders in 2002.
The company isn’t paid a set price for its services, according to the contract. In the first year of the agreement, American Preparatory Academy paid the company $1,249 for each student enrolled.
In the second year and beyond, the school pays that per-student base, which is then adjusted by the same percentage increase applied to the state’s weighted pupil unit (WPU).
The WPU is the main funding mechanism for Utah’s public schools and is the minimum dollar amount allocated to each student. For the 2025-26 school year, the WPU is set at $4,674 per student.
Each year, lawmakers are required to increase the WPU by a certain percentage to account for inflation.
Bill would make similar payments private
Current law requires Utah public entities to make certain financial information public, including their employees’ salaries. The state maintains a website called Transparent Utah, where members of the public can access that information.
For instance, a quick search for American Preparatory Academy shows its highest paid employee, a speech language pathologist, made roughly $154,000 last year. But a search for Carolyn Sharette, the executive director of the private company charged with overseeing most of the charter school’s operations, yields no results.
Right now, the law doesn’t state that any payments a school makes to third-party vendors can be shielded from the public, but one lawmaker is trying to change that.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Rep. Neil Walter speaks during a hearing at the Capitol on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025.
Rep. Neil Walter, R-Santa Clara, is running a proposal that would allow schools to keep payments made to an independent contractor private “when the payments are for services under a contract.”
It would also exclude any payments a school makes to a “third-party contractor or vendor who is not [a school] employee” from being considered public information.
The bill’s status is currently unclear. It was meant to be discussed during the House Education Committee’s Jan. 22 meeting, but it didn’t come up.
Last year, Walter was named the Utah Association of Public Charter Schools’ 2025 “Legislator of The Year” for his charter school advocacy.
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