A school system in Alabama has a received $1.4 million reimbursement for money that was wrongly sent to another school system in 2016.
Al.com reports that the state Department of Education reimbursed the funds to Montgomery Public Schools after improperly sending money to the Pike Road system. The Alabama Education Association made the announcement.
“We are happy that these funds will finally be where they were supposed to go in the first place – Montgomery Public Schools,” AEA Associate Executive Director Theron Stokes said in the press release.
Montgomery Public Schools Interim Superintendent Ann Roy Moore said the funds have already been deposited.
The misdirected money was mentioned in a lawsuit that the AEA filed last month against Interim Superintendent Ed Richardson to block the sale of Georgia Washington Middle School to the Pike Road system.
Richardson is overseeing an intervention of Montgomery Public Schools by the state for financial and academic reasons. He announced plans to sell Georgia Washington Middle School to Pike Road to help shore up finances for the Montgomery system.
The plan also included closing Chisholm, Dozier and Floyd elementary schools, selling unused property, eliminating 17 central office positions and other steps.
Michael Sibley, spokesman for the Department of Education, said Richardson’s plan to sell Georgia Washington came after the Montgomery County BOE initially voted to sell the school.
In the AEA lawsuit, filed on behalf of three Montgomery school employees, the AEA claimed that Richardson had no authority to sell the school and was not acting in the best interests of Montgomery schools, noting that he had worked as a consultant for Pike Road when it separated from the Montgomery system.
In response, Richardson said his goal was was to address what he described as “dismal student achievement” in Montgomery’s non-magnet schools.
Theron Stokes said Montgomery Public Schools received the $1.4 million through mediation in the lawsuit.
(Associated Press, copyright 2018)
