Most School Districts, including those in Florida, and apparently Michigan, receive education funds from the State Government by counting students in specific ways and times, and submitting the count to the State to get paid a defined amount per student (called FTE or Full Time Equivalent). Michigan currently sends the District $8241 per counted student.
Apparently, the administrators at a School District in Godwin Heights either didn't know math very well, or couldn't read State instructions, and sent an inaccurate FTE count for "alternative education" students that overstated the FTE by 200. An audit found that the overstatement was not legitimate and now the District has to payback $850,000 for last year after the new school year started. AND, they overstated the count the prior two years also, thus the total payback will be almost $2-million.
Favorite Quote:
Parent Nick Harrison spoke pointedly to Gailitis, charging the superintendent knew the magnitude of the enrollment scandal at the Learning Center, and that enrollments had been deliberately falsified by former Director Jerry Emde, three months before he began to reveal it publicly. (Shows that being a School Supt, is risky business if you don't have good business aptitude, staff & controls. vj)
vj
Amid protests, Godwin Heights goes ahead with cuts forced by over-counting students
by Kym Reinstadler | The Grand Rapids Press
Tuesday October 14, 2008, 5:04 AM
WYOMING -- Despite more than two dozen people urging them to find another way, the Godwin Heights Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved cutting $800,000 from its budget -- the amount the state withheld in July after an audit showed the district received funding for 200 more alternative education students last year than it could legitimately claim.
The board's action means at least a dozen positions will be cut.
But there's more. Despite an enrollment hit sure to follow the impending closure of the 36th Street General Motors plant, Superintendent Valdis Gailitis said Godwin Heights also will raid its savings to repay by July 2009 state funding received on the basis of those inflated alternative education counts the previous two years.
Total cost of the paybacks will be $1.5 to $2.2 million, depending on which formula the state uses for part-time students, said Scott Powers, a new business manager the district is sharing with Wyoming Public Schools.
Despite a plan to keep cuts away from classrooms, many parents and grandparents who addressed the board complained only cuts from administration could accomplish that goal. Only low-participation classes and programs are being eliminated, Gailitis said.
"I am severely disappointed in the board," said Karen Hoezee, a Godwin parent and instructional assistant who doesn't know whether her position will be eliminated at the Godwin Learning Center. "Once again, they have voted cuts from students."
She said students are "innocent victims" in the enrollment scam that happened at her school, and the district owes it to them to find other ways to balance the budget.
Nicole Hill, a high school student, began to cry when she recited a half-dozen recent program and staff cuts -- including cross-country, track and yearbook -- that have affected her.
"It's not big numbers, but these are the things that make a school worth going to (for me)," Hill said.
Instructional assistants for special-education students and a secondary school library clerk were removed from the proposed cuts on Monday because enrollment at the Learning Center this fall is 100 fewer than last year's exaggerated number, not the projected 150 fewer, Gailitis said.
Kathy Ronan, a mother of five, recommended all administrators give back 10 percent of their salaries to save teachers and instructional assistants, but Gailitis said administrators are doing their part by accepting lower-cost health insurance, which saved the district $100,000 last year.
"If I mismanaged to the tune of $1.8 million, I should get the boot real quick," said Remi Montigny, father of four Godwin students, who manages a Kalamazoo insurance company. "We are not a rich district, and our quality is slipping away, and someone has to take more responsibility for this terrible thing."
Montigny said it is time Godwin Heights, Wyoming, Godfrey Lee and Kelloggsville consider merging their school districts into one that's big enough to "run programs that still have meat."
Parent Nick Harrison spoke pointedly to Gailitis, charging the superintendent knew the magnitude of the enrollment scandal at the Learning Center, and that enrollments had been deliberately falsified by former Director Jerry Emde, three months before he began to reveal it publicly.
On a positive note, Gailitis assured the crowd that the GM plant's closure next year won't directly impact the money the state gives Godwin Heights to educate each student -- $8,241 in 2009.
However, the loss of 1,400 jobs in the community could translate into an outward migration of families and students, he said.
