Earle looking at three-year plan to get local school control back

Earle looking at three-year plan to get local school control back

Superintendent looks at timeline for bringing fiscally- distressed district back into financial solvency

mrrandall726@hotmail.com

Earle school officials were in Little Rock this week to discuss their plans to get the fiscally distressed school district back on solid financial ground and returned to local control.

State appointed Superintendent Dr. Richard Wilde updated the State Board of Education about the district’s progress and submitted a legislative update report outlining the steps they are taking to turn the school around.

“They will be getting at least two reports a year on our progress, and there will be a report submitted to them on the anticipated timeline on when the school district can be returned to local control,” Wilde said.

Earle School District was taken over by the state in November 2017 and the school board dissolved after it was discovered that the district spent $1 million of federal Title 1 and school lunch funds on unallowable expenses in 201516.

In addition to the unallowable expenses, a legislative audit turned up numerous financial inconsistencies showing the district was $150,000 in debt, and questionable expenses tied to gift card purchases, credit card charges, travel reimbursements, unapproved salary increases, and overpayments to the superintendent and other employees that had no supporting documentation.

The school district was required to pay back $300,000 of the Title 1 funds and had to borrow the money.

Wilde said the district has already made great strides to turn its finances around.

He reported in March that the district was completely caught up on its bills and expects to begin repaying the $300,000 loan soon.

Although a timeline has not yet been determined, Wilde said local control could be returned to Earle within three years.

“We will have to be fiscally solvent which means we will need to have a beginning balance of roughly three months worth of bills and obligations, and we will need to have a clean audit,” Wilde said. “It won’t be until the next audit year that we can take a look at whether there is improvement over the current audit. So we anticipate this is probably going to be a three-year minimum process.”

By Mark Randall