OKLHAOMA CITY, Okla. — Oklahoma’s Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) brought forth its investigation into the financial disbursements of the State Department of Education to the Legislative Oversight Committee on Tuesday.
FOX23 sat in on Tuesday’s hearing.
Members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSDE), including State Superintendent Ryan Walters, were present as LOFT presented a lengthy report to the Legislative Oversight Committee.
LOFT found no wrongdoing in the OSDE’s spending.
LOFT covered five areas in the investigation, which are Title 1 funding, maternity leave reimbursements, school resource officer funding, school inhaler funds, and teacher pay raises.
No legal issues were found.
The only concerns were about communication and delays to disburse funding, but the delays still fell within federal law.
LOFT did submit the following policy change suggestions:
- Requiring the OSDE to publish an initial funding plan for new programs or legislative mandates within 90 days of the program’s start date
- Specify in budget limits bills any funds that have the ability to be used by the OSDE to fund other areas of need.
- Clarify whether funding directives for off-formula school districts apply only to those schools fully off the State Aiding Funding formula or if it applies to those schools that are partially off the formula.
- Authorize a grantmaking process for circumstances where a nonprofit organization is best suited to facilitate a program’s objectives.
Walters called the hearing a complete waste of time and taxpayer money. He said the OSDE has been fully transparent with their financial dealings and the report showed that.
“What we saw today was absolutely a waste of the people of Oklahoma’s time, they have been trying to impeach me for months,” Walters said. “We have Speaker McCall and Mark McBride who said that they were here to impeach me. That’s what they wanted to do.”
Walters said the OSDE will continue to
When asked if the OSDE would implement the policy suggestions, Walters said that they are reviewing the suggestions and will decide on that at a later date.
“We’re still reviewing the recommendations from LOFT, but here’s what you saw today: we have executed on the legislative mandates given to us,” Walters said. “We have held taxpayer dollars accountable, we have brought more accountability to the dollars going in your schools. That’s what you were just told, we just went through a whole hearing of how much more accountability we’ve brought to the taxpayers of Oklahoma.”
State Rep. Mark McBride, Chair of House Appropriations and Budget, said Walters took the meeting too personally. McBride said it had lots of educational benefits for House members and provided much-needed financial transparency into the OSDE.
However, McBride still has concerns with the travel expenses of Walters. He said he doesn’t believe there was enough wrongdoing in this report to push forward an impeachment inquiry.
State Rep. Provenzano from Tulsa grilled Walters and the OSDE in this meeting.
She was not at all satisfied with the answers they gave to her questions concerning maternity leave reimbursement delays, Title 1 funding miscalculations and communication issues.
Provenzano said she does not believe the OSDE will put in place the suggested changes from LOFT.
For now, Republicans in the House said this report did not give them enough to move forward with an impeachment inquiry.
For the full investigation report, click here.