NC charter school employees plead guilty to theft and embezzling taxpayer dollars
Two employees of a now-defunct North Carolina charter school have pleaded guilty to embezzlement charges that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Bridges Academy in Wilkes County closed in 2021 amid what it called “insurmountable financial challenges.” Federal court records show Shannon Pruitt Caudill, the school’s executive director, and Kimberly Nicole White, the school’s finance officer, have agreed to plead guilty to theft of government property and to each pay $112,500 in restitution.
The plea deals were reached earlier this summer and first reported last week by The Wilkes Record.
Bridges Academy, located about 150 miles west of Raleigh, was one of the first charter schools to open in North Carolina in 1997.
Charter schools are taxpayer-funded schools that are exempt from some of the rules traditional public schools must follow. There are 209 charter schools open statewide this year.
Bridges closed amid investigations by the State Bureau of Investigation and the State Auditor’s Office. The Federal Bureau of Investigation also joined the investigation.
Bridges Academy’s falsified student enrollment records
Public schools get state and federal funding based on how many students attend.
According to court records, Caudill and White falsified student enrollment records for the 2020-21 school year to report more than 60 students the school didn’t have. Court records say the duo kept the inflated figures secret from other school employees by keeping two separate systems for recording enrollment.
The falsified figures allowed Bridges Academy to receive an additional $404,971 in state funds and more than $80,000 in federal funds.
The State Auditor’s Office also found Bridges misused $78,576 of charter school funding to support a preschool it wanted to open.
Court records say White and Caudill used the inflated enrollment figures as documentation to help Bridges get a $2.6 million loan from Surrey Bank and Trust to build the new preschool. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development guaranteed 90% of the loan.
The planned preschool died when Bridges closed. Surrey reported losing $121,000 and USDA reported losing $1.1 million after the foreclosure.
Probation and restitution as part of plea deal
Caudill and White will be sentenced in federal court in February. Both could face a maximum of 10 years in prison and $250,000 in fines.
But as part of the plea deal, prosecutors have agreed to recommend they each get two years of supervised probation.
In return, Caudill and White agreed to pay a combined $225,000 in restitution. They’re each paying $37,500 to the state Department of Public Instruction, $37,500 to Surrey Bank and $37,500 to the USDA.
