If Maine's largest school district had filed an accurate and timely annual report with the state Department of Education last year, Portland would have received "significantly more than" its $12.3 million subsidy this year, Deputy Education Commissioner James Rier said Friday.
"Deadlines are important, and this is a good example of why," Rier said.
The news comes as Portland officials wrestle with a $1.7 million to $2.5 million deficit in an $82 million school budget for the year that ended June 30. They're also trying to figure out whether the current $85.7 million budget will result in similar overspending.
Superintendent Mary Jo O'Connor and Finance Director Richard Paulson resigned this summer amid the controversy. Paulson has left his position, but O'Connor is on the job until Dec. 28, unless the School Committee replaces her sooner.
According to e-mails that the newspaper obtained under Maine's Freedom of Access Act, Paulson filed a corrected report for the 2005-06 school year on May 30. Shortly before, the district's auditor discovered that a federal subsidy had been overstated by $500,000 in the original report that Paulson filed last fall.
The amended report came more than five months late, after the state had announced statewide subsidy amounts for the current school year.
Rier said his staff refused to adjust Portland's subsidy because it would have meant recalculating $978 million in education aid for all 290 school districts across the state. And many districts would have received less state aid if Portland received more, he said.
Portland school officials had estimated that the corrected report would increase their education subsidy by $544,000 to $636,000, according to May 22 and 23 e-mails between Paulson and Laurie Davis, the district's grants administrator.
"I don't know if it's that much, but it's a significant amount," Rier said. "I'd say it's between $300,000 to $350,000."
School Committee Chairman John Coyne said Friday he was unaware that this year's education aid was less than it could have been. He said Portland school administrators hadn't informed his board about the error or amended report. Coyne declined to comment further until he had a chance to verify information provided by the newspaper.
He did acknowledge, however, that missing out on any funding would be unfortunate at this time. The committee recently agreed to leave 12 positions unfilled to save $520,000 in salaries and benefits and cut athletics spending by $153,000, among other reductions this year.
O'Connor and Paulson have declined to talk to the media since they resigned.
Although it's not uncommon for districts to file late reports, Rier said, Portland's error in this case was among the largest and its amended report was among the latest he'd ever seen.
In its original report, the district claimed it received $4.2 million in Title I federal grants during the 2005-06 school year, according to e-mails between Paulson and Davis.
The original report, due July 31, 2006, was filed Oct. 27, 2006. The state uses the reports to calculate the next year's state education aid for all 290 districts.
After Portland school officials learned that Title I revenue had been classified and counted incorrectly, Paulson filed an amended report on May 30, 2007, reducing its Title I funding to $3.7 million.
Suzan Beaudoin, the state's school finance supervisor, followed up with an e-mail to Paulson, informing him that Portland's subsidy amount couldn't be revised because the deadline for amended reports was Dec. 15, 2006.
"We have not made any exceptions for any of the school administrative units that have submitted late revisions...
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