Sloppy Paperwork and Missed Deadlines Cost DeKalb Schools millions (GA)

May 7, 2010

Sloppy paperwork cost DeKalb County  schools $25 million dollars last year and almost cost millions more again this year, officials said.
The mistakes caused the state Department of Education to revoke $11 million in construction funds and temporarily withhol d another $14 million, according to records obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. DeKalb taxpayers ended up paying for the $14 million in construction projects with sales tax dollars, which could have been used for other purposes.

Further, the district’s rocky relationship with the state almost cost the troubled school system another $27 million this year.

“We lost more than $20 million last year because of sloppy paperwork on behalf of the school district,” school board member H. Paul Womack said this week.

The AJC has learned that DeKalb taxpayers have spent millions of dollars in sales tax to help build and renovate schools, instead of relying on state funds as other districts do. State law allows for reimbursement of up to 90 percent of construction costs.

“Taxpayers are having to pay more local dollars for these projects because they’re not getting their state portion,” said Lynn Jackson, the Georgia Department of Education’s associate superintendent for business operations. “Other projects could have lost out.”

The only reason the school system didn’t make the multi-million-dollar mistake again this year was because State Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) intervened, securing a special extension that ended up bringing the district $27 million in state funding, Womack said.

“Fran fixed it,” Womack, chairman of the board’s budget committee, said about this year’s state construction funding. “But it shouldn’t have gotten to that point.”

School officials point fingers at former schools chief operating officer Patricia “Pat” Reid, who used to be known as Pat Pope. She still works for the school system but is no longer responsible for the construction paperwork.

But Jackson said the responsibility ultimately falls to a district superintendent. At the time, th at was former Superintendent Crawford Lewis, who was terminated last month.

“I’ve had discussions with the superintendent in past years and he told us it would be taken care of,” Jackson said.

Every year, school systems submit a plan to the state detailing the square footage of each school, building conditions and anticipated enrollment. That information is then used to determine how much money the state awards each district to build new schools and renovate existing facilities, Jackson said.

Deadlines must be met and paperwork filled out correctly, which is not a problem for most districts, Jackson said.

But it was for DeKalb, the state’s third-largest school system.

“We’ve been dealing with this for years,” Rep. Millar told the AJC. “Pat Pope [now Reid] was brought in. She was a professional. She was supposed to fix this. Obviously she didn’t.”

Reid’s lawyer, Manny Arora, said he could not comment by press time Thursday. Lewis’ lawyer, Mike Brown, declined to comment.

It’s unclear how much state funding DeKalb might have lost through the years.

Millar said he got involved last year after reading a news release from the governor listing the amounts districts received. Cobb, Gwinnett and the other large systems had received $20 million to $30 million.

DeKalb got $1.2 million, Millar said.

A review of school records shows that last year DeKalb lost: $8.18 million for Arabia Mountain High School, $1.7 million for Miller Grove High School, $525,000 for an unnamed elementary school, $1.23 million for an unnamed high school, $858,000 for Columbia High School, $8.18 million for an unnamed high school, $4.47 million for Flat Rock Elementary, $890,000 for Stone Mountain Middle School, $297,000 for McNair High Sc hool, and $733,000 for Peachtree Middle School.

Funding for the first four schools was lost altogether. The money for the last six projects was revoked, but it is available for future school projects, said interim chief operating officer Barbara Colman.

“We didn’t get the paperwork until it was way too late and past the federal tax code deadlines,” Jackson said.

Millar said he met with Jackson, Lewis and other school officials last year.

“Sloppy paperwork should not be the reason that 97,000 students are punished” he wrote to the state Department of Education last year. “If they let this happen again, and if I am still in the legislature, I will barbecue them in the press.”

Although DeKalb didn’t receive that state money, Colman said the construction was still completed and no projects suffered. The construction for all of the schools except Peachtree Middle came from the one-penny local sales tax, she said.

But that local money should have been used for other projects. Jackson said they would include such projects as  extra classrooms, gyms, music rooms, sports fields and school libraries.

Colman, who replaced Pope, said the district has struggled with state construction funding for 10 years, but the two people who prepared the paperwork no longer work for DeKalb.

Records show that in 2005, the state wrote Lewis about its concerns and granted DeKalb an extension allowing the district to get $25.7 million that the school system didn’t apply for that year.

“The chief operations officer was ultimately responsible for having the documentation filed correctly, timely and properly prepared,” Colman added.

On Friday, interim Superintendent Ramona Tyson and her staff met with Jackson in an attempt to r epair DeKalb’s damaged relationship with the state and make sure the district followed procedures to get all available funding.

That’s when she learned that Lewis had not officially told Jackson about the district’s plans to close four schools this year and another eight to 10 next year.

The school closings, which are needed to help with budget cuts and to eliminate 11,000 empty seats, affect construction money, Womack said.

The district learned it would receive more construction money if it closed all 12 to 14 schools at once instead of over two years, board chairman Tom Bowen said.

Jackson could not say whether the district would gain by delaying the school closures, saying that depends on which schools are involved.

While the state construction money and local sales tax funds couldn’t be used to help DeKalb’s current operating budget woes, the school system is in no position to lose any money. The board is scheduled to vote Monday on the fiscal year 2011 budget that includes at least $107 million in cuts.

Millar said he will continue to monitor the state funding, but he wonders why no one in the district noticed the discrepancy.

“When you see something that abnormal, a flag should be raised,” he said. “We have elected officials with the school board. These people should be able to handle this. You are talking about a good bit of money.”