MPS looks to submit missing financial reports by Thanksgiving amid ongoing financial crisis

In a virtual meeting Monday, October 14, 2024 officials offered an update on the financial fiasco facing Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).

With overdue financial reports still not submitted to the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), the district now hopes to complete its FY23 financial reporting by Thanksgiving, according to the district’s interim superintendent, Eduardo Galvan.

“We have confidence in Superintendent Galvan and CFO Sawa,” said State Superintendent Jill Underly about the new leadership at the helm of the state’s largest school district.

Leaders with both DPI and MPS expressed optimism in completing the district’s Corrective Action Plan (CAP).

“We started working on the CAP at the end of June 2024, and over the past three months, MPS has made significant progress on various items in the CAP,” said Tricia Collins, DPI assistant state superintendent.

The district is now working to align its systems with state reporting systems and is addressing staff vacancies in the district’s Office of Finance. Officials hope to speed up the process to correct past mistakes and avoid them in the future.

The district has hired Aycha Sawa as CFO and is still “aggressively” recruiting for a comptroller.

“As we have been working to submit overdue data, we have also been working to correct issues, streamline processes, and ensure we are creating long-term solutions to these problems,” said MPS Interim Superintendent Galvan.

With all these efforts underway to get the district back on track, officials hope to complete its FY23 audit by Thanksgiving and are already working to ensure next year’s financial reports are submitted well ahead of schedule.

“I understand the public’s frustration that the district is in this situation. It is now my goal to ensure that this never happens again,” said Galvan.

Monday’s update comes on the eve of the October 15 General Aid Certification, which replaces previous state aid estimates released in July. You might recall at that time DPI deducted $42-million in an aid payment to MPS last month due to miscalculations in the 2022-23 fiscal year.

“Both MPS and DPI believe we’re in a good place with the 2023-24 data that was used in the October 15 certification, and we don’t anticipate significant adjustments at this time,” said Collins.

State Superintendent Underly also addressed concerns about deadlines set in MPS’ CAP being missed.

“The corrective action plan was never about instituting new deadlines. It was about getting the required work done, and the fact is that while we insisted the district lay out a path, what we have been learning about the depth of the problem is that it’s taking longer than we thought,” said Underly.