NEW ORLEANS – Taxpayers and employees recently got taken for a ride by a New Orleans charter school organization that held a lavish four-day retreat at a Biloxi casino.

The Friends of King charter organization in August held a $70,000, four-day retreat at the Beau Rivage casino resort overlooking the Mississippi Sound that included luxury rooms, expensive dinners and entertainment for 180 employees, TheLensNola.org reports.

About a week after the retreat concluded, Friends of King CEO Doris Roche-Hicks announced the organization was cutting salaries at its Joseph A. Craig Charter School by 2 percent, or roughly $70,000, according to the news site.

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EAGnews regularly reports on questionable spending in traditional public schools – such as six-figure travel expenses and very large catering bills – but the Friends of King retreat seems to suggest some charter school organizations are equally wasteful.

The retreat, which was open to all of Friends of King’s 180 employees, included 101 rooms at a rate of $109 a night, and dinners costing between $38 and $43 per person, $3,700 for audio-visual equipment, and a DJ service. The total bill came to $74,468.14, according to TheLensNola.org, although records show Friends of King had paid just $69,372.96 of the bill.

Friends of King officials did not respond to the news sites inquiries about the retreat and cost discrepancy.

“During their stay, Friends of King faculty and staff heard presentations about how to use data to drive classroom instruction, Common Core standards, student learning targets and school bullying, among other topics,” the news site reports.

Records obtained by TheLensNola.org show Friends of King used general funds from two charter schools and federal grants for raising achievement of at-risk students to pay for the retreat.

Local charter school officials told the news site that professional development retreats are common among charter schools, but organization-wide out-of-state events are not.

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“Once, we had Common Core training at a synagogue in Metairie that we got for a very low cost,” Choice Foundation Executive Director Mickey Landry said.

What makes matters worse, however, is that Friends of King is already in financial trouble. Organization officials reported an $850,000 deficit for the 2012-13 school year and board members recently voted to move about $705,000 from one school to another to cover the deficit, TheLensNola.org reports.

There is one upside to all this: Misbehaving charter schools must either clean up their act or risk being  put out of business by the authorities whom granted the charter. Government-run schools, on the other hand, can waste money and miseducate students for decades without facing any type of do-or-die discipline.