MPS board leaders keep avoiding questions; another director says board needs more guidance

 

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Leaders for the Milwaukee Board of School Directors answered questions Wednesday for the first time since their vote to let former Superintendent Keith Posley resign. Kind of.

While the board offered a brief update about Milwaukee Public Schools' (MPS) effort to get long overdue financial reports to the state, a district spokeswoman cut off the press conference after only two questions.

Board President Marva Herndon said the district turned over its 2023-24 books to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) on Monday. Because MPS is more than eight months late on providing that data, the district is at risk of losing its June share of special education funding, which was $15.7 million last year.

The most recent numbers MPS had previously provided were wrong, which DPI officials say likely led to overpayments that will cause "significant" reductions in general state aid next year.

Board Vice President Jilly Gokalgandhi said directors will hold a special meeting next week to compile a list of candidates for interim superintendent.

"Once a superintendent is in place, our intent is to launch a national search for a new, permanent superintendent to lead the district in the long term," Gokalgandhi said.

The board leaders also confirmed Comptroller Alfredo Balmaseda was no longer with the district. However, Chief Financial Officer Martha Kreitzman remains with the district, according to multiple MPS sources.

However, the board did not take other questions, such as why directors allowed Posley to resign instead of firing him for cause amid a fiscal calamity he oversaw, or whether the board should've seen warning signs sooner given the questions outside audits had previously raised.

Employment lawyer Ben Hitchcock Cross said Posley's settlement, which includes $160,000 in severance pay and a $38,500 contribution toward his retirement fund, was likely seen as risk management by a district hoping to avoid litigation.

"What they're buying for the $200,000 is Keith Posley not suing the board," Hitchcock Cross said.

Hitchcock Cross is representing a total of six current and former MPS employees who have filed state or federal complaints against the district. He said past financial data he's reviewed as part of those cases should've prompted the board to be more skeptical of Posley and his inner circle of administrators.

"They don't need to have their hands held to find the issues," he said. "They have a proactive duty to discover issues."

Hitchcock Cross said the most troubling evidence he's seen to date was a January deposition of Herndon. He asked the board president whether she'd read the 2023-24 district budget.

"That is correct," Herndon said when Hitchcock Cross asked if it's true she hadn't read the massive document. "I don't remember reading it, but I see a lot of them."

While board leaders hardly answered questions during the press conference, another director who was there, Henry Leonard, agreed to do an interview out in the parking lot.

"I'll be honest with you. I don't have a problem with questions," Leonard said. "If I can't answer them, I'll say I don't have an answer."

Leonard said he agreed board members should've been more forceful in questioning Posley and the administration about the financial numbers they produced, and the times outside auditors pushed back on the district.

"There's no question about it," Leonard said. "I'll think we're all on the same page with that one, to be honest with you."

Going forward, Leonard said he believed board members need better guidance. He admitted it's difficult to comprehend a $1.5 billion budget, so board directors lean on the administration's finance office. He said additional outside voices, more extensive training and more meetings might be ways to help.

"I'll be honest with you. Onboarding board directors, you're not gonna get any onboarding with finance," Leonard said. "And, to be honest with you, even if they gave me that onboarding, I'm not totally sure I'd understand it."

When asked how Kreitzman, whose DPI licensing history indicates her background is in the classroom, as opposed to finance, can survive a fiscal crisis that has taken down the superintendent and comptroller, Leonard said DPI officials and a newly-hired consultant are closely working with Kreitzman to figure out how MPS' finances got so far off the tracks.

"I'm not sure how that will look three months from now," he said.