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The California Charter School Association (CCSA) is calling “simply inaccurate” a report released yesterday that said state charter schools require more financial oversight.

The report from the Center for Popular Democracy, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and Public Advocates estimated the state would lose $100 million this year from fraud, waste and mismanagement at charter schools and called for a number of changes, including regular state audits of every charter school.

In a statement released on its website, the CCSA said, “While we don’t presume to understand the motives behind this report, we do know that California is a state where the charter school sector, authorizers and legislators have come together to put into place real solutions. It is unfortunate that we continue to have similar distractions for a sector that the report itself suggests is demonstrating to be responsible users of precious public funds in addition to serving a half a million public school students well.”

The CCSA was particularly critical of the amount the report attributed to fraud, waste and mismanagement, saying, “The report’s estimate of charter fraud by simply applying a 5% assumption of fraud based on some ‘global assumptions’ without any specific analysis, simply calls the whole report into question.”

In response to the call for more financial oversight of charters, the CCSA said the report “does not do justice to the system already in place and that is actually more rigorous for charter schools” than other education agencies, in the state, including school districts.

The report pointed to several examples of past documented fraud or waste at some charter schools, but the CCSA said the examples cited were old and out of date.

“The majority of the examples cited in this report are old, from schools that have since closed, and reflect old laws that were updated to provide even greater protection,” the statement said.

Click here to read the full statement from CCSA.