A state legislative audit finds that the West Virginia Department of Education miscalculated by millions of dollars how much state tax money county school systems should have received.
The audit by the Legislative Post Audit Division released to lawmakers Sunday determined that the state Department of Education made $73.3 million in funding errors from fiscal year 2009 through 2015. “The errors included 36 counties being underfunded approximately $51.7 million, and 19 counties being overfunded approximately $21.6 million,” the audit reported.
“The overall impact of the errors in the calculation of State Aid was the net underfunding of approximately $30.1 million statewide,” the audit concluded.
Most underfunding occurred in FY 2009-2012. After that, the majority of the mistakes were in overfunding. For example, in FY 2009 45 counties were underfunded by more than $18 million, but in FY 2013 53 counties were overfunded by $8.3 million.
The school aid formula is extremely complicated. The section that caused the confusion deals with population densities. The four density categories (sparse, low, medium and high) are used to set limits on the number of personnel allowed in each county and to determine allowable transportation costs.
The auditors determined that the state Department of Education misinterpreted the state law passed in 2008 and amended in 2009 that dictates how the money is to be distributed to counties. The new funding formula was phased in, but “the phase-in method utilized by the WVDE was applied in different ways throughout the formula during FY 2009 through 2013.”
“These changes (in the law), as well as the complexity of the calculation resulted in a high risk for error,” the audit concluded.
The controversy over how West Virginia pays for the Constitutionally required thorough and efficient school system goes all the way back to the 1982 Recht decision. The ruling was designed to equalize school funding and eliminate disparities in poorer counties.
The audit findings will likely produce a number of questions among lawmakers and in public education: Should the state pay the $30 million to county school systems that were shorted? Should counties that were overpaid give the money back?
The larger question, which has persisted since the Recht decision, is why the state’s method of distributing state taxpayer dollars to pay for public education is so mind-numbingly complicated that it created the opportunity for multi-million dollar miscalculations.