House Committee on Education and Labor
U.S. House of Representatives

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Citing a string of recent allegations that federal education funds are being misused, sometimes for personal gain, top Republicans on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee today called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the U.S. Department of Education’s Inspector General (IG) to undertake a thorough analysis of what safeguards are in place to protect taxpayer dollars and whether those safeguards are effective.

“Financial abuse and mismanagement in federal education programs meant to benefit disadvantaged students is unacceptable, and allegations of such a breach of the public’s trust must be investigated quickly and aggressively,” said Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), the senior Republican on the Education and Labor Committee.

In letters sent today to the GAO and the Department’s IG, McKeon and Castle requested specific information on the processes in place to monitor compliance with federal program and fiscal requirements at the state and local levels. Their letters also seek information on how findings of noncompliance are used to ensure corrective action, and whether such findings are used to identify areas for management reform on a broader scale.

“The federal government invests tens of billions of dollars annually in programs meant to help some of the most disadvantaged students in the country,” said Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), the senior Republican on the Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee.  “Our goal is to ensure these funds are being used as intended, to improve the quality of our children’s education.”

Republican efforts to investigate waste, fraud, and abuse in federal education programs have been prompted in part by a series of recent incidents in which misuse of education funds has been alleged.  For instance:

•    Earlier this year, the former director of the Institute on Urban Policy and Commerce at Florida A&M University and the former director of literacy programs in Franklin County, Florida were indicted for mail fraud and theft from federal programs. They fraudulently stole and converted to their own use more than $125,000 in grant monies from the 21st Century education grant in Franklin County, claiming these monies as payment for drafting and submitting the grant application.

•    The Puerto Rico Department of Education falsely certified that it had eligible migratory children residing in Puerto Rico, resulting in the receipt of Migrant Education Program funds from 2001 through 2004 to which the Commonwealth was not entitled.  Earlier this year, the Commonwealth paid more than $19 million to settle these allegations.

•    Earlier this week, it was discovered that the Saint Paul Public Schools District in Minnesota improperly spent about $20,000 in federal Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant funding for the purchase of unnecessary computer equipment and did not provide more than $150,000 in required matching funds as specified in its state grant application.  In a report issued by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General, it was revealed that the district charged the Department thousands of dollars for computer classes, food served at grant activities that did not include any technical assistance guidance, per diem and travel for staff unrelated to the grant activities, and set-up costs; they could document only a fraction of these expenses.

•    Four residents of New Orleans, including a former school board president, were arrested and charged in a case where it is alleged that a number of private citizens were paying the school board member a series of bribes totaling $140,000 as a reward for her support and approval of two Orleans Parish School Board contracts involving the lease of a computer-based educational software system called "I Can Learn". The school board received funding from the Department of Education to use the computer system.

“We believe that financial abuse and mismanagement in education programs must be stopped and future abuse prevented.  Better safeguards against misuse of funds must be put in place by federal, state, and local officials and program disclosure and transparency must be improved to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent to raise student academic achievement,” wrote McKeon and Castle.

The letters to the GAO and the Department of Education’s IG are available for download on the Education and Labor Committee Republican website.

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