State Superintendent Ryan Walters Claims No Title I Allocations Were Late

State Superintendent Ryan Walters began the month's State Board of Education Meeting on Thursday by addressing concerns about Title I allocations and reports.

Walters claimed that allocations were posted this year at the same time that they had been in past years and that the information was not late. He did say that a technical issue occurred over the last week that affected spreadsheets and district portals. He said district funds were not impacted.

Related: Timeline: Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters Faces Legislative Scrutiny

The opening statement on the issue stems from questions raised at the end of July by at least one school superintendent who said that they normally receive preliminary figures for Title I allocations in the spring and by at least May in past years.

Walters said on Thursday that districts were advised as early as April of 2024 on how to budget for the next school year. He did not elaborate on whether that advice mirrored the reports provided to districts in previous years.

Related Story: Bixby Superintendent Responds To Criticism From State Superintendent Walters

Walters also talked about the results of a U.S. Department of Education report into the Oklahoma State Department of Education, which showed dozens of red flags on funding and management. Walters said that the report covers the 2022-2023 school year and that the issues raised in that report have been largely dealt with. He says the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) reports will show that to be the case.

USDE conducts monitoring reports on four states each year. The last time OSDE was investigated was in 2017. 

Related Story: Federal Lawmakers Flag Dozens Of 'Action Items' At Oklahoma State Department Of Education

See the full transcript below:

"The first thing I wanted to address with the board is to give you guys some updates. Some of you, we've been interacting back and forth. So I wanted to give this time an opportunity to describe federal funding. You know, I've had a lot of questions on it. I've seen a lot of misguided accusations regarding these, title one funding allocations. So want to make a few things clear, so that we all know where those are.

Title allocations have been posted. They are available on our website and they are in our Grants Management System. Allocations are always posted in July or August. This is not the latest those allocations have been posted. I am aware of a technical issue that we faced this week regarding the spreadsheets and district portals, I understand that that's frustrating when those types of things happen, but we took immediate action and we fixed a problem that was in a formula spreadsheet that was shared with us in the federal government. So we went in there, corrected that spreadsheet. It was produced in part with the federal government, and we're able to do it within, within three days. So let's be very clear, there was at no time that any districts funds were impacted. It was a technical issue with data that is shared between the federal government and the state of Oklahoma. The technicality has been resolved. Districts know everything they need regarding those funds.

Now there have been a small number of voices that are saying funds were delayed or that districts have no information regarding budgeting, that's simply not true. Those saying that are lying. Districts were as advised as early as April with the evidence we've provided on how to budget, and were informed on the final funding that would be known before the end of August.

So wanted to clear the record there on Title I. There's also another federal funding issue that you've probably received emails on our feedback on.

In a letter we received earlier this summer, the Federal Department of Education highlighted areas where action was needed from our department related to various things from funding to reporting and other agencies' functions as related to the previous school year.

These points that were highlighted in the report are mainly issues from the 2022-2023 school year. When I came to the office in 2023. I made very clear that we had to prioritize and make changes towards our procedures in regards to federal programming. Those were conversations we had here. Those were conversations I had very publicly, of changes that need to be made. So again, that's what this report was pointing to, as you look at the timeline there. And you know what we've done, that most of the items that the feds are asking questions about were things that we've addressed, frankly, months ago.

These are, these are problems that we took on and have been handling. And as you can even look at the LOFT report. As LOFT came in, those are a lot of the conversations that we pointed to. These are the changes we made. Here's why, here's the issues that we found upon coming into office. There are some of the items we are currently handling, and we have a full response and documentation that will have sent back by USD by the October deadline.

That won't be an issue. But again, I want to be crystal clear on those issues and what is going on with federal funding."