COLUMBUS, Ohio – A judge in Ohio has ordered a private management company that operates a group of publicly funded charter schools to turn over financial records requested by the schools’ governing boards by March 6.

The Thursday decision in Columbus comes in a lawsuit in which the boards of Hope Academies and Life Skills Centers in Cleveland and Akron asked to break their contracts with Akron-based White Hat Management LLC.

The Columbus Dispatch reported that Franklin County Common Pleas Judge John Bender says in his order that “public money must be accounted for.”

Among records the boards seek are those related to school operations as well as money spent on lobbying for a 2007 law that allows operators to replace school boards that break contracts