LOFT releases report on Oklahoma State Department of Education spending investigation

OKLAHOMA CITY (KSWO) – The Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) has released their investigative findings on disbursements made by the Oklahoma State Department of Investigation (OSDE).

The LOFT investigation did not find any OSDE actions that warranted a law enforcement criminal investigation, according to the LOFT report.

LOFT began their investigation after both legislators and school districts raised concerns of delays in districts receiving OSDE funds, as well as concerns of changing communications pertaining to funding.

While nothing was found which warranted a criminal investigation, LOFT gave recommendations to both OSDE and the Oklahoma Legislature to make sure a similar investigation is not needed in the future.

According to LOFT, the Legislature should:

• For new programs or legislature mandates, require the State Department of Education to publish an initial plan for implementation within 90 days of the program’s effective date.
• Specify in budget limit bills any funds that have the flexibility to be used by the State Department of Education to fund other specific statutory obligations.
• Clarify whether funding directives for “off formula” school districts apply only to those schools fully off the State Aid Funding formula or if it also applies to those schools partially off the formula.
• Authorize a grantmaking process for circumstances where a non-profit organization is best suited to facilitate a program’s objectives.

According to LOFT, OSDE should:

• Review all new legislation by July 1 of each year to identify an implementation strategy for new programs. The plan should include soliciting feedback from school districts, where appropriate, to identify potential problems with implementation.
• Increase written communications to school districts to include: 1. The total preliminary state allocation from the federal government compared to the prior year, to serve as an indicator of whether schools should anticipate a reduction or an increase. 2. Notification of whether districts should expect to receive per-district preliminary allocations and an anticipated timeline for when final figures will be available.
• Establish written policies and procedures for each division within the agency to ensure continuity of operations in the event of turnover. This should include an annual communication schedule.
• Prior to communicating a plan to districts for implementing a program, ensure alignment of all departments that will be involved in the program.
• Immediately seek written legal guidance when the agency identifies conflicts in statute.

Members of the Oklahoma House Democratic Caucus gave their thoughts in response to the LOFT findings.

“The continued lack of accountability from the Oklahoma State Department of Education further emphasizes the State Superintendent’s willful negligence. This puts our school districts and our kids squarely in second place to his own self interest,” Rep. Melissa Provenzano (D-Tulsa) said. “We have a state agency head unwilling to commit to improving service to schools. We have a state agency head unwilling to share how he plans to spend unused payroll dollars. The repeated calls by the public to ‘Do something about Supt. Ryan Walters,’ continue to go unanswered.”

“The State Superintendent says the Oklahoma State Department of Education’s objective is to ‘shrink government,’ but the objective should be establishing OSDE’s ability to effectively manage a multi-million-dollar state agency for a functional education system,” Rep. Meloyde Blancett (D-Tulsa) said. “I come from a business background, and if you had a CEO whose chief staff could not communicate effectively either internally or externally with primary stakeholders, they would be fired. My question is if OSDE is unable to effectively create a functional working relationship with school districts and the legislature, how can we possibly expect success to happen in schools for our kids?

Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters sent out the below X post in response to the LOFT report.

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