The D.C. finance office hasn’t monitored the city’s failed schools properly because the schools have not automated their budget and the finance staff keeps turning over, an expert told the District Council Friday.
“I’m surprised they do as well as they do,” Mary Levy told the Council’s Education Committee.
Levy is a member of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. She testified as part of a hearing on who should govern the city’s schools.
The primary problem is that the schools are still using antiquated accounting software, Levy said. This makes it harder to track funds.
But the finance staff hasn’t been stable, either. New faces come and quickly go, which makes it harder to master the Byzantine bureaucracy of the $1.3 billion system, Levy said.
“They don’t have any institutional knowledge,” she said.
Those who are charged with monitoring D.C.’s budget don’t report to school officials. They report to District Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi.
But that creates conflict because the superintendent’s office expects finance officers to help them, Levy said after her testimony.
“The superintendent’s office expects them to come up with money from some place — any place — to support the programs,” she said.
“It’s not a happy situation. That’s why you get this sort of finger-pointing arrangement. And the public doesn’t know who’s responsible.”
Levy’s testimony was in stark contrast to that of schools Superintendent Clifford B. Janey, who blamed most of the system’s tribulations on predecessor regimes and instead focused on the “progress” and “milestones” of the schools under his tenure.
Maryann Young, spokeswoman for the finance office, acknowledged that turnover is high.
“The work is challenging,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Examiner.
The finance office is meeting its goals, Young said.
“We do work to ensure that the school system balances its budget, and that it is given a clean opinion in the District’s annual reporting, and both have occurred each year since the current District chief financial officer has been in place,” she wrote.
