San Dieguito board, parents respond to release of foundation audit

At its Aug. 7 session, the San Dieguito Union High School District (SDUHSD) board accepted the recently released independent audit report of its high school foundations. With the acceptance, the board also directed the SDUHSD superintendent to craft an implementation plan to address the audit’s 17 recommendations, including developing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that would formalize foundation processes, including transparency.

While the four high school foundations operate as independent entities, the district’s policies allow for school-connected organizations to undergo an audit whenever a concern is raised about the use of funds. The audit was prompted by a report authored last year by a pair of then Canyon Crest Academy students, Kevin Wang and Litong Tian. Called the Ravens for Transparency, the students started asking questions about the CCA Foundation’s practices after fundraising for their robotics team and published a report outlining their issues.

SDUHSD Superintendent Anne Staffieri said that following the audit’s release, she has had positive conversations with all of the high school foundations and work has already begun to shore up some of the issues.

“We appreciated the opportunity this foundation audit provides for both the district and the high school foundations to gain a deeper understanding of our documentation and processes,” Staffieri said, reading for the record a statement provided to local media. “All of our school foundations are valued partners in our educational community, operating as independent nonprofit organizations. We recognize and appreciate the important role they continue to play in supporting the success of our students.”

As the superintendent noted, the district receives over $5 million a year from the foundations, including $220,000 worth of items on the agenda that night.

“Their donations enhance the educational experience of each student and based upon the board majority’s direction given tonight we look forward to bringing back a very clear plan of how we will address the findings of the audit report, work collaboratively to reach a MOU and enhance and increase transparency,” Staffieri said.

At the meeting, SDUHSD board Vice President Jane Lea Smith recused herself from the discussion as she served as a parent board member for the CCA Foundation in 2021-22. While she was assured that any conflict of interest was “tangential” (the audit did not include records prior to July 1, 2023), she wanted to avoid “even the appearance of impropriety” and left the board dais and room.

SDUHSD Trustee Phan Anderson applauded the students’ courage, which resulted in the “much-needed audit.”

“Students were threatened and smeared, they were intimidated, they were pressured to take down the report. Some called the report ‘grossly erroneous and misleading’. However, the audit proved otherwise,” Anderson said. “I’m glad the students did not back down; turns out it was worth it. It sounds like there is a lot of work to be done by the district to ensure that all 17 recommendations are followed.”

The audit was approved in October 2024 and was expected to be completed by January. In February, the board approved an addendum clarifying the scope of the audit work, in response to some questions from the community and board members.

“It took a little bit longer than initially intended but our goal was to be really methodical, really accurate and confident in the recommendations,” said John Dominguez of the audit firm CWDL.

The audit called attention to 17 findings, including the lack of a formal MOU, lack of clarity surrounding administrative fees, balance errors and failure to track in-kind donations and assets.

“In our sampling and our testing, we did not see any direct indication of fraud,” Dominguez stated.

Some steps have already been taken to address the audit findings, such as the CCA Foundation refiling tax returns and reducing fees from 25% to 20%.

SDUHSD Trustee Michael Allman said the MOU was the main recommendation, to ensure there’s “no more screw-ups.” The district had attempted an MOU with the foundations in 2023 regarding facilities rentals, which the foundations have handled for almost 10 years. Following pushback from the foundations, the MOU never moved forward.

That night on a separate agenda item, the board approved a new position and job description for an aquatics program and facilities use manager. Staffieri said the position was created in anticipation of the audit findings; this individual would oversee facility use and rentals across the district, not just for the new pool at Torrey Pines High School.

During the public comment portion, there were 14 speakers including the Ravens for Transparency authors Wang and Tian.

“We were right,” said Tian, to applause from members of the audience. “My goal from here is that the CCAF functions better for students and the community. My goal is not to decrease the donations, to ruin anyone’s life. My goal is to make this organization work better because we all know how important their work is.”

Parent Amy Caterina said she has been fighting against the “toxic culture” at the CCA Foundation for more than 10 years and she was glad that the students were not ignored. She said that the problems were not solved by the audit and suggested a complete forensic audit, a return of overcharges, and that the foundation is moved off the CCA campus. She also recommended that the board fire the CCA principal Brett Killeen and censure Vice President Smith.

“Within the context of this audit, multiple things can be true: the foundation did great things for the community while maybe not being so truthful,” said recent CCA graduate Ben Sartwell.

Speakers like Tian said they were hopeful that the district would move to improve foundation transparency and ensure donor confidence is restored so students get the services they deserve.

Former board member Katrina Young reiterated her initial concerns with an audit. While she voted in favor of conducting an audit, her concern was that the process could do more harm than good. She urged the board to focus on the facts and make the needed improvements, “avoiding pointing fingers or pounding chests.”

Parent Jen Charat also spoke out against people vilifying the CCA Foundation over the findings.

“Please do not mistake incomplete documentation for corruption, administrative gaps for conspiracy. There’s no failure here,” Charat said. “CCAF has a new executive director and a new board. Let’s all row in the same direction. The more this board focuses on false fervor, the more it will cloud the future.”

Solana Beach resident Melissa Fischel said she did the one thing she could do as a show of support: she made donations that day to the CCA and Torrey Pines Foundations where her children attended.

The board’s discussion on the audit findings was strained at times as Allman had a lot of questions for the audit firm. SDUHSD President Jodie Williams wanted to keep the meeting moving, requesting he limit his questions to only what was required to make a vote—she said Allman had already spent several hours with CWDL discussing the audit.

The CCA Foundation’s 25% contribution to a discretionary account remained a sticking point and a core issue for Allman. As the audit showed, across the foundations there were inconsistent and unclear administrative fee applications, ranging from 5% to 25%. According to the audit, donors are often not adequately informed about when and how these fees are assessed, and in some cases, no fee is charged, particularly for donations intended for expense reimbursements: “These inconsistent practices could lead to donor confusion, perceptions of unfairness, and potential compliance issues,” the report read.

“When you give, you can’t give all your money to the robotics club, the foundation won’t let you, 25% has to be donated to the discretionary fund…. We don’t know the answer whether that’s right or not,” Allman said.

When Allman questioned whether such a fee was unusual, Dominguez shared his opinion that it was an uncommon practice. He said that when the audit firm did a sampling of discretionary account expenditures from those targeted donations, they found the funds were generally used for related expenses.

Regina Twomey, the new executive director of CCAF,  provided some clarity on the fee. For example, if funds are given to the girls soccer team, 80% of the donations goes to the team and the remaining 20% stays with the athletic program to support shared resources that benefit of all athletes.

“It’s not a fee,” Twomey said. “It doesn’t go to salaries or administration. It simply ensures that all teams have access to facilities and improvements that no single team can afford.”

She added: “Our goal is to support every student, every day.”

SDUHSD Trustee Rimga Viskanta remarked that she wasn’t sure if the 5% to 20% discretionary fund allocations were a good or bad policy, but noted it was something for the foundations to examine moving forward, not the board.

In their comments, Allman and Anderson also both questioned the “monopoly” the foundations had as the only way parents can contribute to the schools—Anderson said she wished there was an alternative.

“The foundation exists at the will of this board,” Allman said. “If we do not approve their ability to fundraise for us, they can’t fundraise for us. We’ll find another way to fundraise.”

In her comments, Viskanta said it was important to remember that everyone is on the same team, One San Dieguito. The schools don’t get enough funding for everything students need and the foundations are set up as a “wonderful” resource to make sure kids can get things like new jerseys and go on robotics team trips.

Viskanta said she thought the audit was a good thing and she was glad that CWDL took their time to provide a comprehensive report.

“Great volunteers, pretty good audits, no fraud,” Viskanta said. “I’m so excited to have this information and I think the foundations are too because now we have this great basis to move forward to make our foundations even stronger and our school ecosystems even better.”