IG finds $23M misallocated to Maryland schools weeks after bill to fix funding errors dies
Originally published on FOX45 News
Baltimore (WBFF) — Legislation aimed at safeguarding your tax dollars is getting new life following a report from Maryland’s Inspector General for Education. The report confirmed millions of tax dollars are going to educate students who are not in school.
During this year’s 90-day legislative session in Annapolis, which ended two weeks ago. Delegate April Rose of Carroll County introduced House Bill 1365.
“It’s clear moving forward that something has to be done to fix this problem,” Rose told Project Baltimore.
Rose introduced the bill after Project Baltimore exposed ghost students who are kept on the rolls to increase the funding a school receives. In 2021, Fox45 News learned of potential ghost students enrolled at Augusta Fells in west Baltimore, including one student who was enrolled while in jail.
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“I didn't enroll in the classes or anything. I've been gone since 2017, buddy,” the former Augusta Fells student told Project Baltimore.
In Maryland, schools receive funding based on the number of students enrolled on one day, September 30. That one head count is used to determine how much funding the school will receive the next year. Rose’s bill was designed to create a more accurate count by requiring schools to report enrollment four times a year.
“We need to come up with a better system of finding out where these kids are,” said Rose. “We’re doing a terrible job, clearly.”
Some surrounding states do use a different system for counting student enrollment. Pennsylvania and Virginia use average daily membership, which is similar to attendance, to determine funding. Some school systems in our area, like Howard County, already count enrollment monthly and post the results to their website.
HB 1365 never made it out of the House Appropriations committee. It was largely ignored. Hours before it was voted down, Delegate Maggie McIntosh, the chair of the committee, who represents Baltimore City, told Fox45 News she hadn’t even read it.
“I was negotiating on the tax package with the governor, so I wasn’t at the hearing. And I don’t read every bill,” McIntosh told Project Baltimore in March.
McIntosh voted against Rose’s bill, saying a few instances of inflated enrollment do not justify the legislation. That was less than a month ago. Now, things have changed. The audit from the Inspector General for Education, shows it’s not just a few instances, its thousands of students costing taxpayers millions of dollars.
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“It’s not right for the taxpayer. It’s not right for the children. We need to know where they are. And we have got to stem this tide of millions and millions of dollars flooding out of the state of Maryland to not teach children,” Rose told Project Baltimore.
The IG’s audit, launched in response to Project Baltimore reporting on Augusta Fells, found, over the last five years, 928 instances of students in just Baltimore City who should not have been funded under Maryland law. But City Schools received nearly 10 million taxpayer dollars to educate those students who were not there. In the same five-year period, the IG found nearly 3,000 instances of students statewide who should not have been funded, totaling nearly 24 million in misallocated tax dollars. And the report says “more discrepancies” likely exist making the problem worse.
“The fact that legislators, who are in charge of providing oversight, refuse to do their job is concerning,” said Sean Kennedy with the Maryland Public Policy Institute.
Two years ago, the state legislature passed what is known as the Kirwan Plan. It amounts to the largest increase in education spending in Maryland’s history. Billions of additional dollars will be going to schools to educate students, and Kennedy says, we need to make sure those students are actually there.
“Which means that this problem is going to cost a lot more over the next ten years than it's already cost the taxpayers. So, this problem is going to balloon in size,” Kennedy told Project Baltimore.
Project Baltimore emailed McIntosh to see if the IG’s recently released report changes her position on House Bill 1365. We never heard back.
To help fix this problem, the IG’s audit offers nine total recommendations between City Schools and MSDE to improve the accuracy of their enrollment counts. North Avenue and the State have agreed to implement most of them. But Rose says it’s not enough.
“I plan to come back next year with this bill, once again,” said Rose. “I think with this IG report, I think it’s hard to ignore the fact that we have a major problem to the tune of millions of dollars, and something actually must be done about it.”
Watch the interview here.