Portland City Council members and others have been seeking that information since they began to work on the School Department's budget last winter. School officials say they have begun to compile grant information, which the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram has requested under the state's Freedom of Access Act.
School districts elsewhere in Maine say they regularly report detailed information about account balances for grant sources.
Some city councilors say the School Department's inability to produce grant records reflects a lack of oversight that contributed to a $2.5 million budget deficit in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
The council's finance committee has been seeking a full accounting of grants received by the department for several months. Councilor Edward Suslovic asked school officials for the information in January, saying it was difficult to review the district's expenditures because grants weren't included in the budget, according to minutes of a Jan. 24 committee meeting.
At the time, Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor said grants would be included in the current school budget.
Suslovic continued to press for grant information during last spring's budget review, but school officials did not provide it before the council passed an $85.7 million school budget in May.
When asked for grant balances last week, Finance Director Richard W. Paulson, who resigned Monday, could only produce a form that the department files quarterly with the state Department of Education to report balances for state and federal funding sources.
The form, filed in April for the period ending March 30, lists the balances, cash received and expenditures for 20 different state and federal grants. Examples include the Katrina Relief Grant for Displaced Students, and grants for special education, English literacy and civics education. For some grants the department showed a cash balance; for others, expenditures were running ahead of grant revenue, so the account showed a deficit.
For example, a federal Title III language acquisition grant showed an account balance of $129,020. A federal Title I grant to fund education for disadvantaged students was running at a $1.39 million deficit. For all 20 of the grants, the department showed a collective deficit of $2.6 million.
Paulson said his department was trying to come up with more up-to-date and comprehensive information. Two employees -- the accounting manager and a grant accounting staff member -- had been working on it for several months, double-checking amounts in various accounts, but they had not been able to complete the job, he said.
"They have had to fit the job in between their other duties and have not had time," he said.
Despite annual budget audits and quarterly reports on grant money, Paulson said there is no system that allows the department to produce ongoing account balances.
"I don't have one document or group of documents with all of the reconciliations," Paulson said.
Some grants can be sizeable, such as the $600,000 grant from Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound to create the Casco Bay High School. Teachers also obtain grants each year for special projects.
Some other school districts' finance managers say they provide regular reports on grant account balances to their principals and department heads and could put together an up-to-date list of grant account balances within one business day.
Westbrook has recently added software that is designed to specifically monitor all grant sources, said Michael Kucsma, business manager.
He said that even three years ago, the business department was providing printouts of all of the grant balances on a monthly basis to its...
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