The group was unable to provide documents to support roughly half its claimed spending
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
June 7, 2008 - A federal audit of Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to teach in low-income schools, has found that the organization did not properly account for $775,000 in government money it says it spent for summer training sessions and related purposes.
A regional inspector for the Education Department’s inspector general outlined the findings on Thursday in a letter to Wendy Kopp, Teach for America’s founder.
“T.F.A. did not fully comply with applicable laws and regulations regarding its discretionary grant expenditures,” the letter said. “As a result we could not determine whether $774,944 was spent for the intended grant purposes.”
Steve Mancini, a spokesman, said that Teach for America did not dispute that there had been accounting failures, but that the money in question had been correctly spent.
“There was no misappropriation of funds,” Mr. Mancini said.
In their inquiry, government auditors scrutinized $1.5 million in Teach for America spending, of a total of $6 million the group received in three government grants from 2003 through 2005. The group was unable to provide documents to support roughly half its claimed spending, $775,000 of the $1.5 million sampled, the report said.
Mr. Mancini said Teach for America would submit the additional documentation.
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