The Jersey City Board of Education announced the summary findings of the second part of the special education audit, with the full report not available to the board nor the public since it has been referred to law enforcement who have opened a criminal investigation.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
At Thursday’s over seven-hour meeting, the third-party firm that conducted the audit, Lerch, Vinci, and Bliss LLP, released a 3-page summary of their findings.
While the full 80-page audit report was referred to law enforcement, authorities directed the board not to release the full audit to the board or public so as to not impede an ongoing investigation, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Norma Fernandez.
“We made the necessary changes to the varying departments as we received feedback. The last part was the special education department … Following the release of part one of our districtwide special education audit, the auditing firm has been completing the highly complex second phase,” Fernandez added.
“This phase evaluates allowable expenses under Chapter 192 and 193 for special education services provided to students attending non-public schools outside our immediate jurisdiction.”
Jeff Bliss, of Lerch, Vinci, and Bliss LLP, then presented summarized findings from their second phase of the audit of special education in non-public schools, specifically including non-public state aid programs and the district’s Office of Non-Public Schools.
The review, which encompassed both the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school year, started with going over financials such as the completion reports for non-public school state aid.
As he began to break down the summary, Board President Noemi Velazquez and Board Counsel Robert Pruchnik interrupted him to note a copies of the shorter 3-page report were being distributed to the board for brief review.
“We stress confidentiality. No notes, no pictures, no anything. Thank you. And we’re collecting them right back,” note Velazquez.
When it was made clear copies of the report were to be taken back from board members after the presentation, members of the audience shouted that “it’s a public document” and asked that the report be displayed on the projector screen – to no avail.
According to Bliss, the numbers in the completion reports for non-public school state aid varied from the district’s internal accounting records and annual state audit reports were off by “a very significant amount” in some cases.
“They did not agree to the audit reports which did agree to the internal accounting records. Eventually, what happened was the state required the district to reissue those non-public completion reports to agree to what the audit had, which agreed to the district records,” stared Bliss.
When reviewing third-party service provider billing and documentation, Bliss said the audit found more issues and “multiple concerns.”
“Corresponding emails between parents and the Office of Non-Public Schools and the service provider had different times than the times on the time sheet,” Bliss said.
The third party employee timesheets did not match their invoices nor the internal student sign-in sheets, he said, adding that some timesheets lacked non-public school locations where the service was provided, or indicated multiple locations during the same time period, “which is virtually impossible.”
Some services were provided to these non-public school students on Saturday or Sunday or late in the evening with times as late as 9:30 p.m.
The majority of services provided by the third-party service provider for the Chapter 192 and 193 services were provided by Jersey City Public School employees who were contracted by the service provider to provide services at times after the school day concluded, Bliss said.
The report found that students in services were assigned for these after-school services by the district’s Office of Non-Public Schools, not the third-party provider.
“We found that a little unusual because the third-party services provided us with the approved timesheets,” he said.
“However, it’s very unclear if they were aware of the students and teachers assigned or corresponding times services were scheduled to be before. This third-party service provider did not assign the teachers, they did not assign the times, they did not assign the students to the teachers.”
In reviewing the invoices from the third party, there’s possible duplicate billing and double compensation to certain employees, Bliss continued.
For the 2023-2024 school year, the third-party service provider billed almost $82,000 for 75 students whose services appear to be provided during the school day by Jersey City paid employees.
In reviewing the staff’s schedule, the student sign-in sheets, and then comparing what Jersey City paid employees did during the school day, the audit noted certain students showed up on the invoices of the third-party provider.
As part of that $82,000 billing, the report found 62 students on both the Jersey City paid employees’ schedules as well as the third-party provider invoice- account for over $65,000.
The report also highlights two instances in the 2023-2024 school year where Jersey City paid employees appear to receive compensation by both the district and the third-party service provider for overlapping time during the regular school day- totaling 17 hours for $765.
“It wasn’t a significant amount of time … but it should not happen … The third-party service provider should have known that those services were done during the day and were not done by their paid employees, and they should have not invoiced the district for those.”
He continued that the audit found “very sloppy, obviously, record keeping, incomplete record keeping,” especially for 4071 eligibility forms that are filled out by the parents of the non-public school student for the Jersey City Office of Non-Public Schools.
On the second and third page is the determination of eligibility and the services to be provided, which that office or the third party is responsible for filing out, and for the 2023-2024 school year there were 4071 eligibility forms missing for 97 of the 200 students listed on the third-party service provider’s invoice.
“We were being invoiced for services provided to students that did not provide us with a 4071 eligibility form,” he said.
“We could not determine if the student was eligible. We could not determine if the student even requested the services to be before them.”
Bliss said the third-party service provider charged the district $63,368 that year for services provided to students who did not have eligibility forms presented for our review.
The date the application received and the months services can begin was blank in many instances, and eligibility was not detailed per the criteria which includes the type of assessment that was made to determine if the student was eligible- such as a progress report, a report card, standardized test results, or test scores- was also blank.
“We couldn’t determine what method was used to determine eligibility of the students,” Bliss said.
“In reviewing this service provider’s invoice, the invoice for this provider was based on the contract amount- meaning the contract divided by ten,” Bliss said.
“It did not detail students serviced or times serviced as was required in the contract. The contract clearly spelled out that the vendor’s invoice would detail the students provided the services and the date and time the services would be provided.”
For the 2022-2023 school year, the distract received $60,000 in Chapter 193 funding, but the third party did not charge the full amount of the contract it could have under non-public school state aid- which resulted in the district having to return $23,000 in unexpended funds.
He said those funds could have been spent on that contract rather than being charged to the IDA program or carried forward to the next school year.
“So basically, you are out twenty three thousand dollars that should have been funded by the state aid non-public school fund,” he said.
Another significant area of concern was the IDA-funded SAT/PSAT program, which ran on Saturdays from 9 to 11 p.m. from March 2 to the end of June.
On Memorial Day Weekend, no students attended, but timesheets were regularly submitted each Saturday for anywhere from 4 to 7 teachers including a lead teacher and a supervisor.
In addition, employee timesheets often charged to the federal IDA grant program did not describe work as SAT/PSAT-related and occurred on non-program days like Sundays and sometimes during schools nights at as late as 10 p.m.
Looking at building swipe records to determine if teachers swiped in at the times listed on timesheets, Bliss said they did not support times reflected on timesheets for the Saturday morning program.
There were times when seven teachers put timesheets in on a Saturday, and only three people swiped in.
“In many instances, the invoices were not complete. It appeared, someone either took a page out, or a page got misplaced, but the invoice used to pay the vendor was incomplete,” Bliss explained.
Velazquez noted her displeasure with receiving the findings of the audit during the public meeting without receiving a copy to review prior.
“There’s so much here to unpack that, I’ll be honest with you, I have been on this board for seven years and at the helm for two years, and I don’t think I’ve been so… disappointed to receive something so late, so grave, yet in such little time to unpack it,” she stated.
“I know that it was just recently submitted to the district, but I think, as board trustees- the governing body of this district- we should have had an opportunity to dialogue more on it prior than you presenting it to the total population.”