In Broward County, a charter school was under investigation for inflating enrollment to get more money and for spending taxpayer money on personal items. So it converted to a voucher school, where it is under investigation again.

“A Broward charter school once accused of inflating its enrollment numbers to get state dollars now faces more allegations of fraud after it closed and re-opened as a private school.

The Broward County School District was trying to shut down Pathway Academy charter school in Lauderdale Lakes in 2016 when Principal Yudit Silva decided to convert it to a private school called New Horizons. The school served the same students at the same location. It collected about $20,400 in state dollars through two voucher programs serving students with disabilities.

But a state judge says the school should now be cut off from all state money after it used questionable means to apply for vouchers through a program called the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, which provides tax incentives for businesses to pay for low-income students to attend private schools.

The state found that 39 parents at New Horizons turned in identical forms for the scholarship, all listing themselves as single, their birthplace as Miami and their income as zero, Administrative Law Judge John G. Van Laningham wrote this week..

“Obviously, to be a single parent without any income is to experience extreme poverty,” the judge wrote. “While it is theoretically possible that all 39 of the subject parents were destitute, this is highly improbable.”

The school denies the allegations and plans to provide a detailed response before a final decision is made by the Department of Education, said Christopher Norwood, who is providing legal assistance to the school.