On Wednesday State Auditor Beth Wood released the results of a performance audit at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI). The audit was of Coronavirus Relief Funds allocated to the DPI from the 2020 COVID-19 Recover Act. The objectives were to ensure that Coronavirus Relief Funds were spent in accordance with the 2020 COVID-19 Recovery Act and subsequent amendments as well as that the programs that received Coronavirus Relief Funds accomplished their intended purpose.

The first finding stated that $31 million of Coronavirus Relief Funds distributed for the Summer Learning Program without a method to ensure student ability was improved. The State Auditor’s office recommended that DPI should gather the information needed to determine how much or even whether student ability was improved by the Summer Learning Program. In the response from DPI, Superintendent Mark Johnson agreed with the finding.

“DPI agrees with the finding and the recommendation, but unfortunately, the tool to measure student ability was terminated by the NC Board of Education. Any effort to measure the impact now simply cannot be made based on quantifiable, verifiable information.”

The auditor rebuts DPI’s reasoning and stated, “At no time during the audit did managers directly responsible for the Summer Learning Program ever once state that it had a tool that could have monitored student outcomes but was recently taken away.”

The next finding stated that $37 million of Coronavirus Relief Funds distributed for Nutritional Services without establishing a method to measure results. The recommendation was that DPI should gather the information needed to determine whether the intended results of its Recover Act spending were achieved. DPI disagreed with the finding.

“The School Nutrition Division established specific objectives to allocate and distribute Coronavirus Relief Funds to local Public School Units (PSU) to monitor their use and document the implementation strategies of each PSU as indicators of performance outcomes. To date, four of the five oversight objectives have been achieved and des audits are underway to examine the allowable use of funds and to access and document PSU implementation strategies,” Johnson explained in the response.

The State Auditor concluded that DPI’s plan for measuring results for the distribution of Nutrition Services was not sufficient and not timely.

The third finding stated that DPI distributed approximately $76 million but did not monitor spending. Their recommendation was that DPI management should monitor public school unit spending to ensure the funds are spent in accordance with the 2020 COVID-19 Recovery act. A finding that DPI disputes.

“Divisions within DPI use different methods and various tools to comply with subrecipient monitoring requirements. The programmatic and fiscal monitoring processes align with the three elements of monitoring described in the finding,” said Johnson in the response.

The auditor disagreed and went on to state that DPI did not evaluate the risk of misspending by each public school unit for the purpose of developing a monitoring plan. Nor did they develop a monitoring plan to address the risk of misspending. DPI did not compare supporting documents such as invoices, receipts, and payroll records to public school unit expenditures.