As the Department of Public Instruction continues its press tour for $4 billion in new education spending, it still has not publicly accounted for all of the $1.49 billion in ESSER III pandemic aid.
“Between the crisis in Milwaukee Public Schools and lowering test score standards for our kids, Superintendent Underly has a lot of trust to rebuild with the people of Wisconsin, Asking for billions from taxpayers without publicly accounting for millions in COVID aid does not rebuild that trust.”
CJ Szafir, IRG CEO
What Happened: DPI committed to sharing with taxpayers how school districts obligated $1.49 billion in temporary federal funding. The deadline to obligate those funds was September 30, 2024. Over a month later, every district’s allotment should be at $0.00.
However, that is not the case. DPI is missing an immense amount of information in its reports, making tracking impossible.
- Over $13 million was not obligated, according to DPI. Did districts really forfeit $13 million, or has DPI failed to account for every dollar to the public?
- Certain districts have gone over their allotments by a combined $300,000, according to DPI. Was there actual overrun, or has DPI failed to account for every dollar to the public?
- Since May, certain districts lack descriptions of their line items, preventing the public from interpreting how millions of dollars have been obligated. DPI has corrected some of the errors, but over 100 districts still have missing data. Why has this not been fixed yet?
Until those problems arose, the Institute for Reforming Government had tracked and analyzed every dollar in DPI’s 450 separate pdfs.
Why It Matters: DPI has asked for $4 billion in additional spending but has not fully reported to the public how schools have obligated the $1.49 billion they received for pandemic recovery.
After a good start, DPI struggled to drive transparency for ESSER III funds. Districts had only obligated 34.0% of funds in January 2023. After IRG published its first report on that slow progress, DPI attacked IRG, but districts sped up to obligate 62.8% by March 2023. By December 2023, progress had slowed, and 79.4% had been obligated. In 2024, DPI broke its reports’ line item descriptions and left $13 million unaccounted for to taxpayers.
What’s Next: IRG will watch to see if DPI quickly corrects its public reporting. DPI’s 2023 and 2024 ESSER III oversight process could become a facet of the Legislative Audit Bureau’s audit of DPI’s K-12 finance monitoring. No matter what, IRG will ensure ESSER III is fully accountable to parents, journalists, and policymakers.
