Lawmakers order DPI audit over questionable school financial reports

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s public school managers are going to have some questions to answer after another school said its finances are in disarray.

The Legislative Audit Committee ordered an audit of the state’s Department of Public Instruction’s "policies and procedures" for "analyzing the financial data of Wisconsin’s school districts."

“Every year [local schools] have to do an audit and send it to DPI,” Sen Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, told News Talk 1130 WISN. “Well, it turns out that many schools don't. And there's a couple of ways that they skirt that responsibility. One is that a small school district may not have the staff…But at the same time there are large school districts, like Milwaukee, and they just didn’t hire the staff to do it.”

Milwaukee Public Schools still have not yet turned-in required financial reports from last year. One of those reports was due last September.

Earlier this week, Wauwatosa Schools told parents that a “budget mistake” punched a $4 million hole in their budget. The district’s CFO blamed his predecessor for writing a bad budget.

And the superintendent in Monona Grove Schools this week said a budget mistake there led to a massive draw down of the district’s financial reserves.

Wimberger said while local schools are required to send DPI their financial audits, DPI is not required to actually check the numbers.

“They’re just checking to see if they got a report,” Wimberger explained.

And when there is a problem with those local school reports, as Wimberger said was the case in Milwaukee Public Schools, taxpayers and parents are often the last to know.

“[DPI’s] definition of reporting it to the school district is to notify the superintendent in the finance team,” Wimberger said. “So, if you have the superintendent, as it came to be in the MPS, the superintendent and the finest team are responsible for not doing the audit, and DPI considers reporting problems to the school district being reporting it to the superintendent and the finance team, then nobody else hears about it. I think that's deliberate.”

Wimberger also said the current financial reporting system at DPI is “deceptive.”

Milwaukee Public Schools didn’t reveal the depth of their financial problems until after taxpayers approved a $252 million tax increase in April, even though DPI knew of the troubles for months.

Wauwatosa Schools disclosed their budget “surprise” this week as they are planning to ask taxpayers for $124 million this fall.

The superintendent in Monona Grove Schools this week promised taxpayers that the district would not seek a tax hike referendum to bail them out of their financial crisis.