2 weeks Ago
COLUMBIA — The S.C. Department of Education is holding firm in its fiscal oversight of Richland One, rejecting the Columbia school district's plan to address findings of mismanagement related to its paralyzed early learning center project.
Construction at 2812 Rawlinson Road, the site of Richland One’s early education center, has been stalled since January. Describing the district's recovery plan as inadequate in an Oct. 31 letter obtained by The Post and Courier, Chief Financial Officer Kendra Hunt said the education department will bring in an outside team of auditors to help the district address "multiple, overlapping areas" of financial concern.
Richland One submitted the recovery plan as part of its response to the department's Aug. 2 declaration of a fiscal caution , the state's second of three escalating designations of financial concerns. That designation was triggered by the state inspector general's repor t that district officials' handling of the still-incomplete Vince Ford Early Learning Center project broke the law, wasted over $352,000 and amounted to a $31 million "unauthorized or illegal procurement.
" By the time that report was released, the earlier issues that initially put Richland One under the department's scrutiny already had been fixed, according to the department's own report. The rejection of the plan comes just days before Columbia-area voters will go to the polls for school board elections in which the district's financial problems and its handling of the Vince Ford project have been significant campaign issues. In its now-rejected three-page plan, district leaders said staff would get additional training on procurement procedures, that an outside accounting firm would review its internal financial controls and that measures were taken to strengthen its procurement records system.
It also pushed back against some of the state's findings of procurement issues and the asserted mismanagement of the $31 million, pointing out that the report noted no criminal activity. That defense was not well received by Hunt, who wrote in the letter that "some of the District's seemingly cursory responses have amplified the Department's concern regarding the District's apparent failure to grasp the gravity and full implications of the (inspector general's) findings." Richland One's plan also didn't sufficiently lay out how it intended to implement further internal controls, correct the reported mismanagement of the $31 million, answer questions about the district's potential liability in lawsuits related to the center or estimate the center's operational costs, according to Hunt's letter.
Sign up for our Education Lab newsletter. Email Sign Up! Despite those issues, the education department is not escalating the district's fiscal status to a fiscal emergency, which would have put the district at risk of having its financial operations taken over by the state, as it "remains hopeful" that the "necessary improvements" can be made. The district now is meant to work with the department and the independent auditor to develop and implement a new recovery plan.
Under state law, the department can require the district to reimburse the cost of that auditor. There's no timeline set for that process, according to department spokesman Jason Raven. A district spokeswoman said the school board would review the department's letter at a later meeting.
She did not comment further. The 22,000-student district was first put on a fiscal watch , the lowest of the three state designations, in December 2022 after a department audit found problems with its purchase card system. The district has since corrected those problems, according to the findings of a departmental follow-up audit report which notes "positive changes.
" That follow-up report is dated from June, but was only released to the newspaper Nov. 1. A department spokesman said in August that the report hadn't been finalized.
State law would have allowed the department to release the district from its fiscal watch after noting those corrective actions. The department did not take that step because it discovered additional financial concerns which it raised to the inspector general, according to Raven. The earlier purchase-card issues were followed by the long-simmering controversy over the Vince Ford center, which was originally planned to serve children between six weeks and five years old in an effort to better prepare students for kindergarten.
But amid combination of zoning issues and a complicated jurisdictional back-and-forth between the district, the education department and the S.C. Department of Social Services, the district started construction on the Lower Richland project without first securing the necessary permits.
A stop-work order from Richland County ensued in January, and the construction site has since sat idle but continues to rack up costs. State Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver urged district Superintendent Craig Witherspoon to end the project entirely in August, as have some school board candidates hoping to unseat the board's current majority. The district has not taken any such steps, but the school board in August re-approved its contract with the construction firm hired to build the center, before Weaver sent her letter sharply criticizing the project and derailing district hopes of quickly restarting construction.
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