The ESD debacle’s expensive lesson

There is much to learn from the several-year saga of the Union-Baker Education Service District.

Unfortunately for several Northeastern Oregon school districts, the lesson will be an expensive one.

Oregon’s Department of Education wants 41 school districts to repay the state $2.2 million they received.

That’s a preliminary figure — the final amount could be determined after a meeting scheduled for today in Pendleton to which officials from all 41 districts were invited.

State officials say the districts owe that money because the UBESD, between 1999 and 2004, reported that those districts had more students in their alternative school programs than were actually enrolled, and that employees were working with students for more hours than they really were.

The money would otherwise have gone to school districts that were entitled to the dollars, according to the state.

The fraudulent reporting, which was discovered in part due to ESD administrators’ lavish spending — including buying an airplane in 2003 — prompted several of those officials to resign.

The scandal also forced the ESD to drastically pare its empire after the state canceled six contracts with the district.

The ESD’s budget was slashed from $23.74 million in 2004-05 to $8.36 million the next year. Today the ESD runs just two alternative schools, in Haines and Island City.

Baker School District will not suffer greatly in the aftermath — its proposed repayment share is $1,380.

The Burnt River School District at Unity ($1,572) and Pine-Eagle District at Halfway ($25,091, to be repaid over two years) are relatively unscathed, too.

But the Huntington School District’s tab is $123,713, and North Powder’s is $117,445.

The ESD, by the way, has no legal obligation to reimburse the state, but its board has offered to pay the state $256,000.

We hope the UBESD debacle reminds local government officials — elected board members as well as the administrators they hire — that when their districts get more money than they expected, they have an obligation to find out why.

School officials, for instance, have no excuse for not knowing how many students are enrolled in alternative programs.

If records show discrepancies, as was the case with the ESD, then officials need to ask questions and demand answers.

Think about it this way: If your bank starts adding $1,000 to your savings account each week, you could spend the money.

But odds are the bank will eventually catch its blunder — and you can bet its reaction won’t be to send you a form letter saying it hoped you bought something nice.

The bank will want its money back.

Just as the Oregon Department of Education does now.

Fortunately, state officials have offered to let the districts with the larger shares repay the money over five years, or possibly longer. That at least will reduce the effect on those districts’ annual budgets.

Even so, money that should benefit students will not. And that means the students will be punished solely because people who should have known better didn’t check their math.

Instead, they treated taxpayers’ money like a five-dollar bill they found in the gutter.