A government probe revealed that the District’s school system failed to consistently monitor and create records of its spending of federal money.
The Office of the State Superintendent of Education, or OSSE, told the U.S. Government Accountability Office that it had policies to monitor its grant recipients, but couldn’t produce documentation of any, except in one case, and even the documented policies were not always followed.
Congress gave $85 million to the state education office to expand public charter schools between 2004 and 2009.
When the government looked through OSSE’s 2008 and 2009 grant files, it found the papers “often lacked evidence that staff collected this information or performed other monitoring activities,” the report by Congress’ investigative arm
says. “Most of the files did not include all the narrative and financial reports required by OSSE in many of their grant agreements.” Few records showed any staff effort to obtain the necessary documents.
The federal government gave
D.C. Public Schools $105 million over five years to improve public schools, but its spending records before 2009 were scarce: “DCPS could not locate information that may have been created on specific activities funded with federal payments during this time,” the report says. Half of expenditures were set aside for a “literacy improvement program” — but DCPS could not provide information on the program’s objectives, activities or results.
The probe found that the public school system’s policies for monitoring contractors does not specify how to do the monitoring, and thus was inconsistent at best. The government’s review of 14 of the largest contracts awarded DCPS in 2008 and 2009 “found that several lacked any evidence of a performance evaluation by a program officer, or any subsequent review.” The contracting office could not even locate three of the 17 files the government requested.
In response to a draft of the report, former Chancellor Michelle Rhee wrote in an October letter that the data before 2009 reflected a previous administration. “The current administration at DCPS has no knowledge of these plans and repeatedly reported this to the GAO,” Rhee said.
Interim State Superintendent Beth Colleye
wrote that OSSE “agrees that consistent written policies and procedures for monitoring all federal payment sub-grantees are necessary, and will further advance its mission.”
Cornelia Ashby, director of education work force and income security for the GAO, said she was not shocked by the report’s findings.
“They have long-standing problems,” she said.
