The state Department of Education has reported Dougherty County Schools to the U.S. Department of Education’s inspector general over concerns about how the district is spending federal money, county school board members learned during a meeting Monday in Atlanta.
Department officials said they can’t remember ever turning in a school district in Georgia, but state Board of Education members and department staff made clear in a remarkable, courtroom-style meeting that they had had long-standing and urgent questions about the district’s use of federal money.
Georgia would have to spend state money to repay the federal government if a school district here is found to have misspent federal funds.
The state Department of Education wrote Dougherty school officials on Nov. 6, questioning how they spent $294,000 in federal funds. State officials gave Dougherty 20 days to respond; 23 days later, with no response from the district, the department’s internal audit manager forwarded the state’s concerns to the inspector general.
In July, the state Department of Education announced that it would withhold federal funding to Dougherty. That freeze will remain in effect, blocking at least $12.4 million from going to the district in southwestern Georgia, which includes the city of Albany.
That $12.4 million figure does not include the remaining portion of the district’s $6.8 million, four-year federal Race to the Top education grant, which will also be withheld.
State officials did not immediately have a precise figure for how much of that grant Dougherty has left. The district began spending grant money in 2011.
“We don’t want to be holding your money,” state board member Larry Winter told Dougherty school board members. “We don’t get a gold star next to our names. We want you to be effective. But you’ve got to help yourself.”
State officials became curious about the district’s spending after news reports about high-paid school officials whose children were listed as being eligible for free or reduced-price lunch.
During a site visit in May, state education officials said Dougherty failed to provide the proper documentation to ensure that federal money was being spent appropriately.
Questions about the district’s count of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch led to questions about how it spent other federal money. And Dougherty, state officials said, had too few answers to too many questions.
A pair of state education officials said Monday that they could not determine who was responsible for overseeing federal grant funds, nor could they gain access to documents about those funds.
Dougherty school board members, who were sworn to the tell the truth before Monday’s meeting by a court reporter, said the district’s staff often kept them in the dark. They also said the district has been plagued by nepotism and favoritism, but they have been hesitant to act because they were worried about overstepping their authority as board members.
The district’s outgoing superintendent, Joshua Murfree, sat quietly during the meeting, but he said afterward that his staff provided documentation to state officials. And he said the district has augmented its hiring procedures to crack down on nepotism.
State officials said the district needs to quickly find an interim replacement for Murfree and hire additional staff to manage federal programs.
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