Recently there was a new realease from “NBC--HELENA, Mont. — The state’s Office of Public Instruction is under scrutiny for potentially misusing millions of dollars in federal funding”
“According to a recent audit, OPI is being questioned about its use of over $67 million.”
“ ‘I mean, obviously, these are significant findings,’ “ said audit committee chair State Sen. Jason Ellsworth (R-Hamilton).
“Last week, the state’s Legislative Audit Committee reviewed a breakdown of numbers from 2022 and 2023, revealing the potential misuse of millions.”
“The spending in question includes $7.9 million from Title I, over $7.6 million from literacy programs, and $52 million from ESSER programs.”
I was curious about this locally so I visited witb Dan Schrock, Superintendent of Big Sandy schools. I’ve been involved with numerous audits, and have come to know that every year different documentation is required.
Dan replied, “Like anything, there are two sides to every story. Some of that may be due to the fact that when that money first arrived (COVID), there were little to no guidelines. A lot of it was emergency situations. People were doing the best they could with the situation at hand at that time.”
“As the years progressed and we entered Esser Two and Esser Three, OPI became much more rigid, with more reporting required. If you look at the Office of Public Instruction, anybody in my position would tell you that they’ve been understaffed and overworked and trying their best in a fluid situation.”
Are there some situations that might be questionable, maybe, but that’s not my call to make. All we can do is hope that the money was spent in the best ways. The guidance from OPI was, ‘Don’t staff up to a point that you cannot sustain that staffing when all this money dries up’ A lot of the bigger schools didn’t necessarily honor that. Maybe they couldn’t. Maybe their needs were that great. The news for the last nine months is that the big AA schools are crying for money for the most part because they staffed up with Esser only to have to rift people. Now that these programs and people are in place to implement those programs, it’s made it challenging for schools. They’re not able to backfill their needs with Esser funds, and it’s a hardship on kids and their families.”
“So I can only speak to our situation. We’ve tried to utilize our money in the best way possible. A lot of that was already cast before I even took over here, but since then, we’ve tried to invest in technology for our kids and staff and utilize that technology for some curriculum costs. We made facility upgrades and maintenance that were backlogged to be useful, because we didn’t have money before, but now we have the money to use.”
“There are different shades of health: academic, physical, and certainly mental health and wellness. Okay, some of the things that people may have done might have been on their bucket list for years, but now they have some money to work with, so they could finally take care of it without hitting the taxpayers.”
“All of the efforts that we’ve taken would hit our general fund, whether it’s curriculum or facility improvements; all those things would have been passed on to the taxpayers. What we tried to do, what I tried to do, in particular since I’ve been here, is to utilize that money so that we’re not hitting our taxpayers and certainly not to incur expenses that are ongoing. To soften the blow, particularly on our local taxpayers, and improve our facility. This building(Big Sandy High School) is from the 1930s. The FE Miley’s a few years younger than that. We’ve had some substantial facility costs.”
