Officials to take case to Austin

By Michael O’Connor/editor@trcle.com

July 15, 2008 06:25 pm

— Cleburne ISD officials will travel to Austin today to discuss the next steps in the wake of the Texas Education Agency’s report on the district’s use of federal education funds.
Dr. Ronny Beard, CISD superintendent and Dr. James Warlick, the former interim superintendent, will meet with TEA officials to try to determine what the agency will require of the district.
The report, which was presented to the school board during Monday’s meeting, is the final audit report, Beard said, but not the end of the matter.
“We’re in a holding pattern,” he said.
Repaying the $362,000 seems a certainty, he said, but how the repayment will be made is unclear.
The district could be asked to write a check, or the repayment could come from a reduction in or denial of future funds.
The report also includes recommendations to divisions of TEA, but the auditors do not have the authority to implement the recommendations.
The auditors recommended that TEA require the district to hire an auditor to examine the use of federal funds as far back as the 2002-03 school year. They also recommended that TEA consider administrative actions spelled out in state and federal law.
Those actions could include requiring outside oversight of the district’s spending practices, requiring more detailed financial reports, restricting the amounts of future funds and denial of future grants, among other things.
Beard said he didn’t know which, if any, of the possible actions TEA might impose and didn’t want to speculate on whether the agency would require the audits.
A full, forensic audit for one year could cost as much as $250,000, he said.
Warlick said a regular audit for the five school years would probably cost about the same amount.
The auditor’s report stated that the auditors had examined the district’s corrective actions and agreed with them.
“We’re taking that as a very positive statement,” Beard said, although TEA could require other changes.
Warlick said the changes put in place multiple checks and balances and that training will be done at every level on the procedures to be followed.
Beard is restructuring the district’s administrative organizational structure and said he believes the changes will also help prevent the problems the district had in managing federal funds.
But the primary purpose in the restructure, he said, is to return the district to its central purpose, educating students.

Editor’s note: Harold Gentry, whose complaint sparked the TEA investigation, said he would provide a written response to the TEA report, but it had not been received by press time. Gentry’s response will run after it’s received.