New MPS draft plan released: Will take months for district to dig out of financial crisis

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Fixing the MPS financial crisis will likely take months, according to a new draft plan released by the state's Department of Public Instruction Tuesday afternoon, June 11.

The long-awaited Corrective Action Plan details hundreds of steps needed to fix a problem that is costing the district -and students- millions of dollars.

It also says CFO Martha Kreitzman is on her way out.

The CAP is not only a roadmap out of the crisis, it is also a detailed explanation of how the district got here in the first place.

It portrays a finance department in disarray: employees with limited experience, several unfilled positions, a lack of training, incompatible computer systems, and a lot of human error.

This CAP is 25 pages long and includes other timelines and charts.

And the timelines released show it will take months to get back on track.

Making all the fixes could take a while: the plan says it'll take until the end of September to submit all the overdue financial data, which are "high priority and high urgency concerns".

And some of the tasks will take until the end of December to complete.

Alfredo Balmaseda, former MPS comptroller, said, "I don't know how reasonable it is to expect this whole thing to be done that quickly."

Balmaseda was not involved in the plan discussions -he was fired last week- but he has intimate knowledge of the department and the challenges it faces.

To get there, the DPI and MPS will meet twice weekly for performance updates, and to identify any issues, risks, or needed changes.

The draft lists more than 130 tasks and includes the specific days they'll start and end. It's in stark contrast to the two scant two-page drafts MPS submitted last week.

But implementing the necessary fixes could be a huge lift for a department that's severely understaffed: there are currently eight vacant positions; the plan calls for hiring at least 12 more people.

Balmaseda said, "That's one of the things I am most concerned about for MPS's situation right now."

He added it's incredibly challenging to attract skilled and qualified candidates to work for MPS. "We couldn't hire anyone in the time that I was there, almost a year."

The plan also says current Chief Financial Officer Martha Kreitzman is on the way out, saying there's "a likelihood of a change in leadership" and that a plan is underway to find an interim replacement.

One of the goals of the CAP is to "assist in rebuilding and restructuring the Finance Department operations," and lists a litany of concerns.

Of the 2024 budget data, the plan says, "The current internal Finance team is reliant on one individual who has the historical knowledge to perform this task."

There are also problems with training: "Finance staff do not have a clear training path…"

And for the accounting manual: "little formal documentation related to internal accounting policies exists."

But Balmaseda said it's not all on Kreitzman. "It's not fair to blame her alone. You need to have the support, you need to have the people there, the candidates need to come in."

Balmaseda told us the financial data at MPS is more complicated than some of the multi-national corporations he's worked with in his career. He said it's not as easy as hiring people from smaller districts and cautions they'll be overwhelmed.