MPS is targeting a Thanksgiving deadline to submit past-due financial reports to DPI

MILWAUKEE — In a virtual meeting Monday, officials provided an overview of the financial fiasco facing Milwaukee Public Schools.

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

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

DPI and MPS leaders expressed optimism about the completion of the district’s Corrective Action Plan (CAP).

“We began work on the CAP in late June, and over the past three months MPS has made significant progress on various items in the CAP,” said Tricia Collins, DPI deputy state administrator.

The district is currently working to align its systems with state reporting systems and is addressing vacancies in the district’s tax office. Officials hope to speed up the process to correct past mistakes and avoid them in the future.

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

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

With all of this effort to get the district back on track, officials hope to complete the FY23 audit by Thanksgiving and are already working to ensure next year’s financial reports are filed significantly earlier than planned.

“I understand the public’s frustration that the district is in this situation. Now my goal is to make sure something like this never happens again,” Galvan said.

Monday’s update comes on the eve of the Oct. 15 general aid certificate, which replaces previous state aid estimates released in July. You may recall that last month DPI withdrew a $42 million relief payment to MPS in the 2022-23 fiscal year due to miscalculations.

“Both MPS and DPI believe we are on track with the 2023-24 data used in the Oct. 15 certification, and we do not anticipate any significant adjustments at this time,” Collins said.

State Superintendent Underly also addressed concerns about failure to meet deadlines set forth in the MPS GAP.

“The corrective action plan was never about introducing new deadlines. It was about doing the work that needed to be done, and the fact is that while we have insisted that the district provide a path forward, we have learned about the depth of the problem that this is the case.” “It’s taking longer than that we thought,” Underly said.

TMJ4 expects the new financial aid numbers to be released on Tuesday and will provide updates as new data becomes available.

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