Today, the NC Office of the State Auditor published a performance audit of the 21st Century Community Learning Center grant program.

North Carolina receives around $30 million in federal funds every year for a variety of district- and community-based programs for at-risk students.  The N.C. Department of Public Instruction (DPI) oversees the competitive grant process, distributes funding to groups selected, and occasionally monitors grant recipients.

I say “occasionally” because auditors found some disturbing facts about DPI’s efforts to monitor these grants.  According to the report,

1. DPI does not analyze cost-per-student data at year end or program end and does not review costs to determine causes for any differences on a grant by grant basis (Analysis of actual expenditures indicated that grant recipients spent about $1,100 per student during the first year of implementation. The actual cost-per-student ranged from $272 to $4,926, with two grant recipients exceeding the $2,500 cap.)

2. DPI did not require grant recipients to pay back unallowable or inadequately documented expenses identified by a regional accounting firm (36 percent of grant recipients had inadequate documentation of payroll and 54 percent of grant recipients with insufficient fiscal policies and procedures to correctly account for grant funds)

3. DPI does not always follow its designed procedures to detect inappropriate expenditures (no kidding)

4. DPI did not accomplish its plan for monitoring grant recipients’ compliance with federal and state regulations despite implementing various monitoring procedures (55 percent of non-district grant recipients did not comply with monthly expenditure reporting requirements but continued to receive grant funds)

None of this is surprising.  In 2012, I wrote about the adventures of grant recipient Real G.I.R.L.S., Inc.  Apparently, the executive director of the organization spent over $4,000 on custom shirts and bags.  She used another $1,000 for golf instruction and golf facility rental.

Earlier this year, Mark Dynarski of the Brookings Institution conducted a nationwide evaluation of the 21st Century Community Learning Center program and concluded that it was glorified day care.