Looks like the Maryland State Department of Education has some explaining to do.
A federal audit into the spending by Baltimore City Public Schools revealed that the district was using thousands of dollars in federal stimulus and Title I funds to fund dinner-cruises, meals, theatre performances and makeovers.
According to The Baltimore Sun, $4,000 was used by two BCPS elementary schools to fund dinner cruises in the city’s Inner Harbor, another $2,400 was spent on meals for a parent-teacher association meeting, an additional $1,300 was used to attend a theatre performance viewing and $500 was spent on a mother-daughter makeover.
The funds were given to the district to fund programs for at-risk youth and to improve the schools in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
“Anytime there’s an audit of Title I dollars, you’re going to see errors at the school level because schools spend money for what they need, and then sometimes they worry about if it fits the parameter of the grant later,” Baltimore City Schools CEO Andres Alonso told CBS Baltimore.
“We’re talking $15 million out of $112 million, and what we see are school events to engage parents, but when the auditors came to look at it they said, ‘Wait a second. This should have been paid out of general funds, rather than Title I’,” he added, trying to play down the amount of money the school district spent inappropriately.
Those attempts didn’t do much to comfort parents or state lawmakers across the political spectrum, however.
“I’m appalled this sort of stuff is going down because you can’t educate the children by taking things for your own pleasures,” George Downs, the parent of a student in a BCPS school, said to CBS Baltimore.
Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) also echoed Mr. Downs’ outrage in a statement.
“I supported federal stimulus funding to create jobs by putting more teachers in classrooms and avoiding the layoffs of others — not for harbor cruises, catered dinners and theater tickets,” he said in a statement. “Funding for some of Baltimore’s neediest children was simply squandered and transparency requirements were completely disregarded. This abuse of tax dollars is one example of why many Americans m istrust government.”
The audit, which was conducted by the Office of the Inspector General for the U.S Department of Education, also discovered a misuse of federal funds by Prince George’s County Schools in suburban Washington, D.C.
