Milwaukee Public Schools is making “significant progress” in sorting out its financial reporting problems and hopes to have its 2023 reports submitted by Thanksgiving, according to state Department of Public Instruction and MPS officials.
“That’s not a hard and fast deadline, but we’re cautiously optimistic that it is possible,” DPI state superintendent Jill Underly said at a Monday press conference. “And our team has not only been working with MPS, but their outside accountants and outside auditing firm, and that has taken a tremendous amount of capacity, time and energy from the DPI.”
The update came after months of upheaval for MPS, which lost its superintendent Keith Posley, its chief financial officer Martha Kreitzman and its comptroller Alfredo Balmaseda after DPI sent a letter to MPS saying it was months late in submitting required finance reports to the state.
DPI also set a goal for MPS to submit its fiscal year 2024 reports this winter, which if achieved would come months before MPS had submitted its fiscal year 2022 reports in late March and early April of 2023.
“We want to beat those dates hopefully by many weeks in 2025,” Underly said.
She also expressed confidence in MPS leadership, interim superintendent Eduardo Galvan and new chief financial officer, Aycha Sawa. The district is still seeking a new comptroller.
Galvan vouched for the Thanksgiving and winter targeted timelines. He said MPS expects to have all of its overdue financial reports submitted to its auditor “very soon.”
“While our progress signals a resolution to MPS reporting issues, our work is not done,” he said. “Although the most significant issues have been addressed, it’s going to be a long process to restore our office of finance as well as trust in that office and the district.”
MPS Office of Finance overhauled, several positions filled
The district’s office of finance is almost fully staffed, with Sawa at the helm since she started in September.
Sawa described “a steep learning curve,” especially with the comptroller position still vacant. She has found certain processes had deteriorated over time due to staffing and turnover issues, which led to the financial reporting issues.
Rebuilding a sound internal control system was among her top priorities, she said. Others include establishing timelines, creating a calendar of deadlines, streamlining the district’s software system to align it with the state’s and evaluating department staffing.
“From what I am discovering, there may be further adjustments in positions, what positions are really needed, how these job descriptions may be rewritten to better fit the needs of the district and financial reporting requirements,” she said. “Also rightsizing the department after these analyses are completed will be necessary.”
DPI assistant state superintendent Tricia Collins said many of the finance office’s vacancies have been filled since July and credited Sawa for helping the district move its financial work forward. She also said MPS updated its policies to allow for financial-related positions to be filled more quickly, allowing the district to make “substantial progress.”
How did MPS get in this situation in the first place?
After the financial reporting failures came to light in May, Governor Tony Evers demanded an audit of the district’s operations and academic practices. In addition, the district was required to submit a corrective action plan to resolve its financial reporting problems.
After Galvan said to business leaders in August that MPS was on track with getting its house in order, state senator Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, raised questions in September about how closely MPS was actually following the promises it made in its corrective action plan.
The district submitted its 2023-24 aid certification to the DPI on Sept. 26. It had been due Aug. 30.
In response to concerns about MPS blowing deadlines set in the district’s corrective action plan, Underly said Monday that the DPI “doesn’t see it that way.” She said MPS submitted its aid certification ahead of several other districts.
“The corrective action plan wasn’t ever about instituting new deadlines,” Underly said. “It was about getting the required work done and the fact is while we insisted the district lay out a path, what we have been learning about the depth of the problem along this journey means it has taken longer than we’ve hoped.”
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
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