About $12.3 million in state education funds went unspent for several years, and local school boards complained of a lack of guidance on how to spend it, a state audit found.
An audit by the Maryland Office of the Inspector General released on February 6 examines the use of millions of dollars in “poverty concentration” funds allocated to the school system under Maryland's Blueprint for the Future. They accused state education officials of not providing sufficient training on the topic. A 10-year education reform plan. The Maryland Department of Education said in a written response that it plans to implement new grant management policies by March 1.
Roughly a quarter of the approximately $42.7 million will begin in 2020 in eight counties allocated grants focused on supporting students who live in areas of high poverty and less access to health and social services. Not used in fiscal year 2022. The report says low uptake is due to poor training.
Although the law specifies 13 services for which the funds can be used, “some services [local education systems] Sharing frustrations with the lack of explanation or guidance from MSDE staff regarding whether certain items, positions, or services can be procured using: [concentration of poverty] The report notes that school officials said state officials “will only provide primarily verbal guidance” on how the funds will be spent.
The audit focused on funding allocated to the Anne Arundel, Baltimore and Montgomery county school systems, as well as five other local education agencies in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore. revealed that it had created various training materials related to funding. But there is little documentation to show that the school system was finally trained on how to spend the money.
Instead, the county school system ended up using the funds allocated to pay consultants to show them how to use them, the report said.
As an example, the report says one school system received a $4.1 million, five-year contract for “ongoing technical support in the implementation of the Community Schools Strategy.”
In fiscal year 2022, Montgomery County spent only 30% of the more than $4.7 million allocated to payroll grants and did not use any per-pupil grants, according to the report. According to the report, Baltimore County spent less than half of the allocated funds that fiscal year.
The department recommended that the state Department of Education develop policies and procedures, including a monitoring process, to ensure the additional funds are not misused.
In its response to the audit, the State Board of Education agreed with most of the inspector general's findings and detailed plans to communicate policy on the use of funds, but it did not require an “ongoing audit of blueprint spending.” They did not agree with the recommendation to the Ministry of Education to establish a , said they had already hired a firm to investigate subsidy spending.
