Finance officials in D.C.’s troubled public schools neglected to file crucial reports to Congress that would have explained whether lawyers who billed the schools were doing the work they were paid for, e-mails obtained by The Examiner show.
The District of Columbia public schools are already rated “high risk” for federal funds because of shoddy accounting practices. One of the reasons for the high-risk tag was that schools missed deadlines for filing financial reports.
E-mails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that finance officials were caught off-guard when told they had to file reports with Congress on whether lawyers paid to litigate special education cases were actually doing their job.
“Team, do we have these?” schools Chief Finance Officer Pamela Graham wrote to her staff on Feb. 4, after being asked where the reports were.
D.C. schools spend millions of local and federal dollars in litigation over its crumbling special education services.
Hoping to prevent corruption and waste, Congress required the schools to check its outside legal bills and report back four times per year. The schools finance office didn’t file three reports last year, the e-mails show.
“There should have been a report in July, October and January,” school finance chief of staff Sabina Acquah wrote in a Feb. 4 e-mail. “I didn’t know anything about this.”
The schools’ finance officers are paid out of the schools’ budget, but report to D.C. Chief Finance Officer Natwar Gandhi. Gandhi has consistently blamed the schools for the rampant problems there, but the e-mailsraise questions about whether his staff is handling their responsibilities.
Finance office spokeswoman Maryann Young blamed the neglected reports on “a transition in leadership” from former schools finance chief John Musso to Graham.
The finance office will tell Congress “that it regrets the interruption of its quarterly reporting,” Young wrote in an e-mail.
