For the first time ever, MCPS in making a limited number of Independent Activity Fund (IAF) audit reports available on their web site. They can be accessed at:
http://montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/iaf/
Until very recently, the IAF audit reports were provided to parents, students, and news agencies only in response to a Maryland Public Information Act (MPIA) request. During the past five years, the Parents' Coalition submitted numerous MPIA requests for audits and posted the audits on the Parents' Coalition web site. However, since MCPS charges a copying fee when the audits for more than a few schools are requested, the Parents' Coalition obtained the audits for only a fraction of the schools.
Each school maintains an Independent Activity Fund. The money in the IAF belongs to the students. Authority for disbursement of funds from the IAFs is vested in the principal of each school.
Any fee paid to a school goes into an account in that school's IAF. With very few limitations, principals are free to move money from one account to another in the IAF. So, for example, fees that are collected for an art class might actually be used to pay for staff gifts. Or dues for an after-school club might be used to cover expenses that are not related to the club activities. For the most part, the audit reports do not provide insight into transfers of funds between IAF accounts.
Money that is paid to a PTA, an athletic boosters organization, or similar organizations that are affiliated with schools is not put into the IAF. However, these and other outside organizations can contribute funds to an IAF account by writing a check payable to the school.
Since the new MCPS IAF web site is incomplete, the Parents Coalition is in the process of obtaining the most recent IAF reports for schools whose IAF reports are not posted on the MCPS site, and we will post them on the Parents' Coalition web site as soon as we obtain them.
Congratulations to Louis Wilen for his years of advocacy in bringing local school Audits to the attention of parents and the public.
ReplyDeleteMr. Wilen and the Parents' Coalition have expressed concerns about the handling of student funds. Previous audits of student funds have confirmed those concerns.
2007
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2007/07/wtop-audit-of-high-school-shows-lots-of.html
2009
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2009/09/new-audits-reveal-continued.html
And now, with the release of additional local school audits the public can see that the issues of the past 6 years have not been corrected. Abuse of student funds continues.
It is our hope that by educating the public and bringing these audits to light greater controls will be put in place to prevent the abuse, fraud, and waste of student funds.
A quick check from a couple of schools - Purchase of gift cards for staff and/or students at Paint Branch High School. Looks like the vast majority of these violations are easily remedied by providing primary MCPS contact or group easily reached who can quickly confirm if an expenditure is legitimate or if the proper procedures are being followed.
ReplyDeletei.e. "If you are unsure about how this expenditure, please contact your supervisor/principal or call the IAF hotline at xxx-xxx-xxxx". Also it would not be too difficult to define approval rules for IAF funds, for example get a principal or designated staff member to sign off on all expenses to guarantee accountability. Even a simple email approval would go a long way if it's too early to manage within the MCPS enterprise business application suite.
Thanks for checking some Audits!
DeleteYou assume that MCPS "wants" to remedy these violations. They do not! These violations are long standing and the AMEX Credit Card bill is going UP under Superintendent Starr's "leadership". The AMEX Credit Card bill is now over $6 million dollars a year. Handing a MCPS administrator is a PERK that they expect! They play, you pay.
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2012/08/mcps-american-express-bill-up-14.html
There are over 1,400 of these AMEX Credit Cards floating around MCPS, including in the pockets of Board of Education members!
DeleteHere's BOE member Phil Kauffman flashing his card at a debate! Let's re-elect him so he can keep using his AMEX card and charging taxpayers! We have no idea what he uses his personal MCPS AMEX card for! Ask him to show you his bill, too!
http://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2010/12/board-member-flashes-mcps-credit-card.html
Wow:
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't $45 dollars per staff person per year enough for "staff appreciation." What is the IAF spending on that exceeds this amount? Does the PTA also sponsor staff appeciation events?
It could be just my software for viewing the files, but note that the pdf files are not in non-searchable format. Probably not intentional, but it's that not difficult to provide searchable PDFs. This is a simple setting on most scanning machines or document processing apps.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I would be interested in looking at the final report that surely exists that consolidates the results by violation type, responsible party, etc grouped by various metrics.