Audit criticizes NC education officials for lax monitoring of federal COVID-19 money
North Carolina’s Department of Public Instruction is being criticized for how it spent federal coronavirus relief money to help students, according to a state audit released Wednesday.
State Auditor Beth Wood said that North Carolina’s CARES Act money was supposed to be used to provide breakfast and lunch to students in need and for a summer supplemental learning program but that the statewide education agency did not monitor to make “sure that these monies accomplished exactly what they were meant to be spent for.”
The audit looked into whether the money was spent correctly and whether it accomplished goals of improving student ability through reading and math interventions and providing school nutrition services to vulnerable students.
The audit’s key findings:
▪ $31 million for the Summer Learning Program was spent without a method to ensure student ability was improved.
▪ $37 million in relief funds were spent for nutrition services without establishing a method to measure results.
▪ $76 million in funds were allocated without a method to detect misuse of the money.
The audit report also says that DPI “made numerous inaccurate and potentially misleading statements” in response to the report, and has its own rebuttal. DPI disagreed with most of the audit’s findings, and the auditors disagreed with DPI’s response.
DPI Superintendent Mark Johnson said in a letter to Wood that DPI “vigorously worked” to deliver coronavirus relief funds “while keeping in mind that the most important focus was helping those in need.” In Johnson’s letter, he blamed the state Board of Education for not having a measurement tool for the summer learning program and disagreed with the other two findings.
The report says the findings are a result of auditors interviewing personnel, observing operations and reviewing documents including emails, reports and policies through Aug. 31. The summer learning funds of $31 million were what was allocated as of Aug. 31 from $70 million total.
“As a result, the Department spent $31 million in taxpayer money without knowing how much or even whether student ability was improved,” the report states, saying that DPI did not know how many students were eligible and participated in the summer learning program and what percentage of their reading and/or math skills improved. According to the report, DPI’s response was that it was not required to set up procedures for assessment of the program.
For the audit’s finding of nutrition spending, the criticism was similar — there wasn’t a procedure in place to measure its success. The audit states that as a result, there wasn’t data showing whether the children who needed meals actually got them, whether school nutrition services were sufficient and whether social distancing was used.
DPI responded that it didn’t create the measures because schools were allowed to use the funds at their discretion as long as it was in compliance, making it difficult to measure. In Johnson’s letter, he said that they used federal money to feed children during the pandemic regardless of where they attended school, and that “the alternative would be letting children go hungry.”
On Wednesday, DPI sent out a statement that Wood’s concerns were already addressed in the department’s official response — the Johnson letter dated Nov. 12 and included in the audit report.
“We fully stand by how we distributed nutrition funds. ... Additional requirements that some would demand would have likely risked that already vulnerable children across NC would have gone hungry. Put another way, when it comes to trying to feed hungry children during a pandemic, DPI did not let the perfect stand in the way of the good,” the statement emailed to The News & Observer by DPI spokesperson Graham Wilson said.
DPI also responded Wednesday that the monitoring of funds will continue through December, then the department will compile a report for review by the General Assembly.
On the money not monitored for misuse, the audit states DPI management said they did not monitor it because of a vacant manager position.
The money is some of the $316 million allocated to the Department of Public Instruction from the first COVID-19 relief package passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Roy Cooper in early May. The legislation designated spending of CARES Act funds.
All CARES Act funds must be spent by Dec. 30.
Changes in leadership
Johnson, a Republican, is finishing his term as superintendent. He ran unsuccessfully in the primary for lieutenant governor in March. Republican Catherine Truitt was elected as the next superintendent in November. Truitt announced her new leadership team Tuesday, including chief of staff Shelby Armentrout, who is an education policy specialist and former state House advisor.
Wood, a Democrat, was reelected state auditor this fall.
In Tuesday’s Council of State meeting, which was the last for Johnson, Cooper thanked Johnson “particularly in the early days of Covid when we had to make such tough decisions for our schools and our children.”
The audit comes a day after a state lawmaker called COVID-19 “a disaster for education” in a meeting about learning gaps among the state’s 1.5 million public school students, The News & Observer previously reported.
Staff writer T. Keung Hui contributed to this story.
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This story was originally published December 2, 2020 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Audit criticizes NC education officials for lax monitoring of federal COVID-19 money."