Feb. 21, 2008 — Every year at about this time the Source runs an article saying that the V.I. Department of Education has, once more, failed to use about $2 million in federal money and it has been returned to the U.S. Treasury.
But not this year — almost all the money available in this category was used in the V.I.
In each of these earlier years per-student figures were cited, usually at about $100 per pupil, showing that the Virgin Islands was far and away the jurisdiction that let the most federal money slip away. All the other fifty-odd jurisdictions under the U.S. flag managed to use more of the federal funds per child than the V.I. did, in each of the last three years. (See, for instance, "Territory Tops List for Unused Federal Education Funds, Yet Again.")
These federal funds do not require a match from local taxpayers; further, they are mostly formula funds, not moneys for which the V.I. school system would have to compete. Most of this money is simply placed on the table with some rules (including a formula that sets the maximum amount available) and all the school systems have to do is to apply for it, spend it appropriately and then account for it. It would all be extra money for the territorial economy and it would make education better for some of the students.
This year, the story is very different. The same table that the U.S. Department of Education releases every year showed, for the fiscal year ending on October 1, 2007, that the V.I. sent back only $2,625, and reverted fewer funds, per student, than anyone else. (The title of the table is "FY 2007 Appropriation Monitoring Report: Discretionary and Formula funds reverted to the U.S. Treasury as of October 1, 2007 by state.")
The mystery: Why did this happen?
In the past, the V.I. Department of Education was never able to give the Source a reason for the non-expenditure of these funds, and now, after weeks of phone calls and emails, it remains silent on what went right this time.
There are potentially plausible reasons for the improvement that do not work. For instance, it is not the new governor, who took office a little over a year ago, or the new commissioner, who came even later, because the commendable change in behavior took place in the period 2001-2003.
Nor is it the contracting firm, Alvarez and Marshall, which has been retained to handle federal education funds for the V.I. — they went to work sometime in 2006.
Non-island sources tell the Source that these are multi-year funds, moneys that must be committed to appropriate activities in the first year or two of the life of the programs (there are several of them) and then spent and accounted for in the following two or three years. If the money is not committed to an appropriate educational goal it lingers in limbo for several years before it is returned to the Treasury.
One small batch of money not used, this time around $1,700, was from a fiscal year '02 program for improving literacy through the school libraries; this had been aimed to the Education Department.
The other small sum, not used, for $925, was in the drug-free school program and had been routed through then-Gov. Charles Turnbull's office. These were FY 2001 funds.
But millions of other federal education funds — the Source does not have that number — were fully used by the V.I. school system — in some mysterious way. The significant decisions and actions thus apparently took place in fiscal years 2001 through 2003.
Meanwhile, another statistical measure has appeared this year — the extent to which No Child Left Behind funds were used. This is a new federal educational support system, and operates under different guidelines than the programs described above.
The V.I. and the Northern Mariana Islands were the only two jurisdictions to spend 100 percent of the moneys allocated, with American Samoa and Georgia leaving behind one dollar each. Nationwide, approximately $80 million was reverted to the Treasury in each of the two sets of programs, the newer NCLB program and the older group of grant programs.
About a year from now the Source will again examine exactly the same federal documents to see if the utilization rates reported then indicate a continuation of the current high utilization of these funds, or a reversion to the old pattern.
And if the Source secures any explanation from the V.I. Education Department about what happened to these funds, it will pass it along.
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