COLUMBUS (AP) — The state auditor has concluded private companies should repay $250,000 in taxpayer money that Ohio’s largest online charter school used for television ads attacking a state effort to recoup funding from the e-school.

The Columbus Dispatch reports it obtained a draft finding for recovery in which Auditor Dave Yost says the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow improperly used public money for political ads and tried to hide the funding’s source using companies run by ECOT’s founder and his daughter.

Yost last year ordered ECOT to stop spending taxpayer dollars on ads attacking the Department of Education, calling it “impermissible.” ECOT has since closed but previously defended that approach to fighting for public funding amid a legal dispute with the state.

Yost plans to release his latest audit of ECOT on Thursday.

Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com