The UFT filed a “friend of the court” or amicus brief on Dec. 23 in an ongoing court battle between the state comptroller and Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter Schools, arguing that the comptroller should have the right to audit the Success Academy schools and any other New York City charter schools.

“Charter schools can’t have it both ways,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “They can’t turn out hundreds of parents with T-shirts that claim that charter schools are public schools, and then argue in court that charters aren’t covered by the same rules that govern other public schools.”

In the union’s brief, UFT lawyers argue that “while charter schools may receive some funding from private entities, they are overwhelmingly funded by public tax dollars and they are subject to the disclosure requirements applicable to government agencies under the New York State Freedom of Information Law.”

Citing charter schools on Long Island and in Buffalo with end-of-the-year fund balances in millions of dollars, though state law restricts non-charter public schools to retaining a maximum of 4 percent of their annual expenditures as a fund balance, the union’s brief says the state comptroller has an obligation to “ensure that taxpayer funds intended to carry out the public function of education are not misused by charter schools.”

Success Academy Charter Schools and other charter school networks challenged a 2005 state law providing that charter schools, as public entities funded by taxpayers, were subject to audits by the state comptroller “just like other public schools.”

The state Legislature eventually rewrote the law to give the comptroller the more limited right to conduct audits of charter schools “at his or her discretion.”

Success Academy went back to court to seek a permanent injunction to block charter school audits by the state comptroller, claiming that such audits were unconstitutional.