Students won’t lose in slipup, but Richland 1 will

Richland 1’s Title I students are not losing out on resources meant for impoverished schools, but the district still has to absorb a $3.1 million hit somewhere in its budget as the result of a missed deadline for federal funding reimbursement.

“They aren’t losing the federal funding,” said Ryan Brown, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, which disburses Title I funding to districts across the state. “What they have lost is some of their own district funding.”

Richland 1 can carry over $3.1 million in unused federal Title I funding, which it left sitting as a result of a missed deadline for reimbursement. It has until Oct. 15 to apply for those funds.

But the district already has spent $3.1 million on resources and services at 20 disadvantaged schools eligible that it will not be repaid from the federal program.

It’s not clear where that $3.1 million will be made up in the budget. District leaders have mentioned the general fund budget and the district’s savings account as possible sources.

Richland 1 superintendent Craig Witherspoon has said to parents that students in Title I schools will actually be receiving more resources than if the district had not made its mistake. The rationale is that they’re still getting resources funded by Title I in addition to the resources funded unexpectedly by the district itself.

“The dollars are going to students, so actually our Title I schools in this case are getting more than they would have gotten originally,” Witherspoon told parents at a recent town hall-style meeting.

But the district – and taxpayers – are still short $3.1 million.

Last year, the district made a different Title I-related mistake when it failed to spend $1.4 million that was available to the district. The money that Richland 1 didn’t spend was later redistributed to other Title I districts around the state, Brown said.

This story was originally published September 29, 2016 at 6:09 PM with the headline "Students won’t lose in slipup, but Richland 1 will."