Milwaukee Public School's Spending Rush Questioned

Alan Borsuk:

As the end of its budget year approached last week, Milwaukee Public Schools had not spent more than $50 million slated to be used for the 2006-'07 school year.

Administrators say that if they hadn't spent the money by June 30, it would have hurt MPS in the future because of state school aid rules - with Milwaukee property taxes rising as a result. So they unloaded some big payments at the last moment, including $37.8 million to prepay costs such as debt service expected in 2007-'08.

This was routine - and good - practice in the eyes of Superintendent William Andrekopoulos and Chief Financial Officer Michelle Nate.

But it set off alarms with others, particularly Michael Bonds, chairman of the School Board's Finance Committee, who said board members were not given straight information from administrators and did not have a chance to deal with the issue effectively. Bonds wondered if there were ways the money could have been used to increase programs for children.

He said he met Sunday afternoon with Andrekopoulos and Nate to talk about the issue, but he refused to accept what he called "a party line document" that suggested to board members what they should say to anyone who asked them about what was going on.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 4, 2007 12:00 AM
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