NAACP: Put Up Or Shut Up
Board of Education Chairman Eric Davis says CMS doesn’t have anything to hide and will fully cooperate with the local NAACP’s request for an outside financial audit of the district, but won’t come off the hip to foot the bill. That burden, Davis said, should fall on the rabble-rousers calling for a review of CMS’ books.
Kojo Nantambu, head of the local NAACP, says dream on and opines that if CMS can afford to keep a superintendent and a raft of administrators fat with six-figure salaries, it can surely afford a few thousand dollars to pay for an independent financial audit.
In a game of Texas hold’em, this is known as calling your opponent’s bluff and the general rule is that if you want to see his cards, you have to pony up for the peek. Nantambu and the NAACP have demanded the audit in response to CMS’ ongoing case for continuous upheaval, which calls for closing several schools that largely serve low-income, minority students, ostensibly as a way to save money. District officials say they face a potential budget shortfall next year that could reach upwards of $90 million.
If the NAACP wants an outside financial review of CMS, great, more power to them; but they should pay the tab. And if their goal is to show gross mismanagement or outright fraud, they’re barking up the wrong tree.
The target shouldn’t be a comprehensive audit; it should be a tailored one, specifically of the district’s free-and-reduced price lunch (FRL) program. Talk about your potential for cost-savings and eliminating fraud, and FRL is the table where you want to lay down your chips.
In a limited audit of the FRL program two years ago, about 62 percent of the applications CMS reviewed from a 3 percent sample ended up either having the FRL benefit eliminated or reduced. There are millions of dollars in potential cost-savings littered throughout the FRL program, but CMS has steadfastly said federal rules and regulations prohibit the district from doing a comprehensive audit. It is prime pickings for an outside agency like, say, the local NAACP to step in for a closer look.
Of course, unless Nantambu and the NAACP are really concerned about uncovering waste and fraud, that might not exactly play into their political agenda and more likely would uncover some ugly truths they’d just as soon keep in the dark, regardless of who paid for the audit.
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