[nfbmi-talk] happens here too

Wed Nov 26 12:28:44 UTC 2014

This is why parent advocates need to attend and know their local school districts and their operations.

Goes to education of blind kids in the mainstream....
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Audit: money slated for special ed went elsewhere

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David DesRoches and Eric Gendron

on November 26, 2014 in

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The school district gained roughly $210,000 in money that was supposed to go toward educating children with disabilities, and the town has no plans to voluntarily

return that money to the state, according to the initial results of a forensic audit investigation.

At a special meeting held at Town Hall on Nov. 19, Jon Zagrodzky, Board of Finance member and chairman of the audit committee, said that some special education

services were submitted for reimbursement to the state that were never delivered during the 2012-13 school year. Zagrodzky said that the town would wait

to hear from the state to determine if it would withhold the additional money in future excess cost disbursements.

Kelly Donnelly, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, told The Darien Times that it “will review the audit and discuss the matter with the

district.”

“At such a point in time, we will then determine next steps,” Donnelly stated.

Many residents have pointed to the need for further inquiry into the matter, especially in light of the assortment of complex problems and illegal activities

that have plagued the district’s special education department for years.

Click here to see Zagrodzky’s presentation from the Nov. 19 meeting.

Findings

An excess cost submission is money the state reimburses a district for special education-related expenses that surpass the per-pupil cost by 4.5 times.

Federal money is given to state governments, which then divvy up the funds to local districts. The audit uncovered two key problems with the district’s

excess cost submissions: the state only funded 73% of Darien’s total excess cost submission during the school year in question; the district applied for

$289,000 in services it didn’t deliver, but the audit findings estimated that the district only received $210,000.

The auditor reported that most of the $210,000 was found in salaries paid to general education teachers. For example, if a teacher had 25 students in her

class and one of them was in special education, the district would submit 4% of that teacher’s salary and benefits — 1/25th — to the state for reimbursement.

Zagrodzky said the state informed the town that this practice was not allowed, though he did not indicate whether this practice was legal. State guidelines

allow districts to get money back for a teacher’s salary only if that teacher provides significant individualized or small group instruction.

Federal law prohibits using money for special education services to pay for other programs. Additionally, the roughly $210,000 that the state paid Darien

went into the Board of Education’s general fund, where it offset other educational costs. The legality of this practice is also unclear. The Darien Times

has asked state and federal authorities for clarification on this process and will report that information when it becomes available.

The other key problem dealt with language written into children’s Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs. An IEP is the legal document that each student

with a disability develops with staff members and parents. It outlines the services to be provided and various goals and objectives to be achieved.

Attorney Sue Gamm first reported that IEPs had “up to” or “as needed” written into them to indicate the number of service hours to be delivered to a student.

For example, an IEP would read that a student was eligible for “up to 20 hours of physical therapy per week,” when the student often would only get a few

hours per week or none at all.

The audit confirmed what Gamm suspected — the district was submitting to the state the maximum number of hours on the IEP, regardless of whether the services

were even delivered to students at all.

In interviews with 16 parents, CohnReznick auditor Joe Centofanti reported that $21,000 in services were not delivered to those students. However, there

were 584 students with an IEP during the year audited, and 50 of these in-district students had education plans that were expensive enough for state reimbursement.

This has led many to question whether the “up to” and “as needed” language was systemic among IEPs, especially after attorney Gamm uncovered other problems

that permeated the special education program.

The parent interviews were held at the Board of Education’s office, Zagrodzky later confirmed. Several parents noted to The Darien Times that this choice

of venue deterred some from agreeing to be interviewed, despite confidentiality assurances. In his presentation, Zagrodzky noted that parents were concerned

about others discovering they talked.

Stories of alleged district reprisals against vocal parents have been numerous, though school board attorney Thomas Mooney has indicated there has been

no evidence of such activity and that parents are free to report their claims to the state Department of Education.

History

For at least five years, district administrators told the Board of Education about how it was more successful than other districts at maximizing its excess

cost submissions. Last year, however, attorney Gamm found evidence that Darien’s process was “fraught with errors,” and her interviews with staff members

imply that problems were inherited from earlier administrators.

According to then special education director, Deirdre Osypuk, “evidence of service provision was based on the ‘honor system,’” Gamm wrote, “which [Osypuk]

asserted was aligned with past practice. She reported that it was her understanding that prior to July 1, 2012, provider caseloads were submitted only

at the beginning of each school year.”

Robin Pavia, the special education director prior to Osypuk, told Gamm that she met regularly with consultants and accounting personnel to discuss changes

in caseload so that the excess cost submissions would be accurate.

Despite findings that district record-keeping was virtually non-existent in some cases, Zagrodzky said that the district will not be auditing previous years.

Parents in attendance were concerned that the problems go back at least several years. Pavia could not be reached for comment.

In April, Zagrodzky himself admitted that problems did not start in 2012.

“Special education problems did not happen last year — they’ve been happening for a long time, and it’s going to take a few years to fix them,” he said

at the April 3 Board of Finance meeting, although he was not referring directly to the excess cost process.

However, state records show that audit problems did not begin with the 2012-13 school year. The state Department of Education issued a notice to the district

after the 2010-11 school year, claiming that reports for reimbursements were inaccurate. Zagrodzky was adamant that it was unnecessary to audit previous

years.

“Despite the cost,  it was worth doing. But we do not advise to repeat this for other years. It was really, really hard to do,” Zagrodzky said.

If these problems go back to when the state started allowing “up to” evaluations in 2008, there could be over $1 million in state and federal money the

district received that it shouldn’t have. The federal Office of Inspector General is charged with investigating allegations of fraud and misappropriation

of federal education money.

No fraud?

Zagrodzky, however, emphatically maintained that the audit found no fraud, and that the problems stemmed from sloppy or non-existent record-keeping.

“Fraud has an element of an intent. If there is fraud, then there has to be something that has to be deliberate or intended in order to gain some kind of

unfair or unlawful gain,” he said. “There was no pattern or some kind of scheme noted in the findings, which would have indicated fraud.”

Repeated questions to Centofanti were tied to the audit’s limited scope, which only examined 3% of all students with disabilities, and also the failure

of Centofanti to interview key former administrators who were responsible for the excess cost submissions.

Centofanti did not interview Dick Huot, former finance director, and Steve Falcone, former superintendent. During his tenure, Huot provided the Board of

Education with regular updates on the excess cost numbers and Falcone would eventually sign off on them. It’s unclear whether Centofanti interviewed Osypuk,

the special education director who worked during the 2012-13 school year, or if he interviewed Judith Pandolfo, the former assistant superintendent who

was Osypuk’s direct supervisor.

In an e-mail to The Darien Times following the meeting, Zagrodzky said that Centofanti would reach out to Huot, Falcone and Pandolfo before the final draft

of the audit is released some time in the next month.

Centofanti initially interviewed several employees who were not working in town during the school year in question. After Gamm’s initial findings last year,

the district quickly moved to fixing its excess cost submission process, which has been in place for almost a year. Most of the recommendations made by

the auditor have already been implemented, as noted in an emailed statement from Betsy Hagerty-Ross, Board of Education chairman.

Soon after Gamm found the excess cost discrepancies, “the administration implemented many changes to the excess cost process,” Hagerty-Ross wrote. Those

changes include keeping detailed service logs, eliminating the “up to” and “as needed” language, among other improvements, and went into effect prior to

submitting for the 2013-14 school year, according to Mike Feeney, finance director.

Zagrodzky added that audience input from the Nov. 19 meeting would be incorporated into the full and final version of the audit.

Other allegations

The audit did not find that the district allocated certain spending from one student to another so that the district would be eligible to reimbursements,

Zagrodzky said. For example, if one student cost $50,000 to educate and another cost $70,000, it was alleged that the district would take money from the

least expensive student and allocate it to the other one to make that student eligible for state reimbursement. This did not happen, according to the audit’s

public presentation.

However, the audit did not answer several of the concerns Gamm raised last November. The investigator reported that employees who had resigned were still

listed on some students’ IEPs as having provided services. It’s unclear if those services were provided by someone else or not at all. Some parents also

claimed that a single full-time aide was applied to several students, making that person’s cost many more times than it actually was and enabling the district

to get more money from the state.

Both Zagrodzky and Centofanti emphasized that this was not a “services audit,” since it was only tasked at looking at where the money went. However, by

interviewing parents, it appeared that the audit was at least partially a services audit. Centofanti stated that he did not interview staff members to

determine if the service hours on IEPs meshed with the actual services provided, although he did interview parents to discern this information.

At one point during the meeting, Liz Mao, Board of Finance chairman, told the audience that this “was not a forensic audit” but that it was a “special audit.”

When asked if that meant the audit didn’t look for fraud, Mao paused before saying that it did.

“We were not tasked with going through and reconstructing every single record and talking to every single person,” Mao said.

Centofanti admitted that he had never done a forensic audit like this one in his 25-year career. The final cost of the audit was estimated at $100,000 to

$120,000, which is roughly 10 times the original bid of $12,000 to $15,000 in Nov. 2013 and three to four times as much as a revised estimate of $30,000

to $45,000. Centofanti said he didn’t know how much work was needed when he provided his initial estimate, which was considerably lower than other firms.

Looking ahead

Zagrodzky told the audience that if they desire to dig deeper, then they should reach out to the Board of Education. Hagerty-Ross declined to answer specific

questions posed by this newspaper about what her board intends to do, citing the need to read the full audit report before commenting. She added that the

Board of Education intends to address the audit at a future meeting.

Only two Board of Education members attended the audit’s public presentation, and neither was there for the entire duration. Hagerty-Ross was not present.

Confusion over the start time of the audit presentation might have been cause for some to miss the event, which was sparsely attended overall.

It’s unclear if the district will continue to use McGladrey as its auditor. This firm approved the submissions that have now been found to include major

errors. The firm did not heavily scrutinize the excess cost figures, Zagrodzky said, and basically matched receipts to budgeted figures, which is a normal

auditing procedure. The problems were found with in-district services, of which there were no receipts or records of service provision.

Zagrodzky expressed contrition at one point during his presentation, apologizing for the problems that his board might have exacerbated. He also told the

audience that he is committed holding as many meetings as necessary, and answering any questions people have, to help restore trust and fix the complex

problems.

“We’re very sorry that what we thought were legitimate actions and good intentions weren’t perceived that way,” Zagrodzky said. “It’s not fair to the town,

it’s not fair to the parents and, frankly, we need to do better. And we will do better.”

Several parents told Zagrodsky that they appreciated the apology and that it went a long way. In an email, Katrina O’Connor, parent and former co-chairman

of the Special Education Parent Advisory Committee, urged parents to stay on top of their child’s IEP and work with the district to move forward as a community.

“We have an ombudsman working hard to rebuild our special education system,” O’Connor said. “Ask questions and keep asking until you get the answers you

need to help your child. You are a critical part of the school team to help your child. Be a strong team member. Listen and be heard. Parents are their

child’s best advocate but you need to do the work. No one else can do that for you.”

(Derryan, Ct.)

Source:

http://www.darientimes.com/37509/audit-money-slated-for-special-ed-went-elsewhere/