WCPS spent $200,000-plus on financial consulting just before 4-year slide

Wayne County Public Schools spent more than $200,000 on consulting projects tied to its Finance and Human Resources departments the year the district’s fund balance began its slide from a $7 million surplus to a $2.4 million deficit.

A New Old North records request has revealed that School Efficiency Consultants was hired by the district in August 2015, a month after Dr. Michael Dunsmore was sworn in as superintendent.

The scope of the firm’s work included everything from an efficiency review “related directly to the business functions of the district” and offering guidance to the superintendent and finance officer on “best practices” to training and mentoring the finance officer and “evaluating and comparing salary ranges and wages” for “selected non-certified employee groups.”

Here is what we know so far:

• A letter dated Aug. 13, 2015, and signed by SEC partner Ricky Lopes, outlines a $143,035 project. The objective was to provide WCPS with “financial and overall resource management analysis and recommend to the Superintendent and the Finance Officer best practices to help position the district to achieve its goals.” The work was to be completed in October 2016 and included:

– Performing a “Resource Efficiency Study” with the assistance of the finance officer, “including funding sources to identify opportunities to maximize all resources within statutory availability.”

– Analyzing the 2015-16 budget to create “additional resource savings” for the 2016-17 budget. (The district finished 2016-17 with a $73,743 deficit.)

– Consulting with the finance officer and “designated staff” on “best practices” for WCPS.

• A letter dated Aug. 19, 2015, signed by Lopes, outlined another project that carried a $35,000 price tag. Among the services listed was an “Operational Efficiency Review related directly to the business functions of the district including finance, payroll, purchasing and human resources.” The work was to be completed by January 2016 and included:

– On-site visits, including staff interviews, to gather information.

– Reviewing job descriptions within the finance and human resources departments.

– Analyzing “workflow processes specifically as related to operational efficiencies.”

– Reviewing communications among the departments being analyzed and other district level departments and schools.

• A letter dated July 1, 2016, signed by SEC partner Hank Hurd, outlines a $15,000 project. The objective was to “provide WCPS with advisory, supporting services, and consulting services under the direction of the Superintendent.” The work was to be completed Dec. 31, 2016, and included:

– Providing consultative and technical assistance to the district finance officer.

– Providing references related to regulations, state and federal laws as applicable.

– Providing training and mentoring support services to the finance officer.

– Meeting with the finance officer “as needed to facilitate the timely preparation of required materials for the district.”

– Providing on-site visits so SEC and the finance officer could meet.

• A letter dated Jan. 11, 2017, signed by Hurd, outlines an $18,000 project. The objective was to develop “competitive step and grade salary schedules for the district’s non-certified staff.” The work was to be completed by May 2017 and included:

– Evaluating and comparing salary ranges and wages for “selected non-certified employee groups.”

– Collaborating with district leadership in selection of a cohort group of North Carolina public school districts.

– Providing recommendations to assist WCPS in “recruitment, retention and maintaining competitiveness in the public school marketplace.”

• The district ended the 2017-18 fiscal year with a deficit of $778,223 — a deficit uptick of 955 percent. According to the 2018-19 audit presented by Rives & Associates June 3, salaries for “school leadership” were a concern and increased 98 percent from 2016 to 2019, with incremental jumps until 2019, when spending spiked from $535,525 in 2018 to $1,023,760 in 2019.

• June 4, the Wayne County School Board hired School Operations Specialists, a consulting firm founded in February by former Durham Public School chief financial officer and interim superintendent Aaron Beaulieu.

While Beaulieu said he has done work with SEC as a subcontractor in the past, he said his company, which was formed in February is not connected to SEC.

• When asked how the district heard about the company, BOE vice chairman Jennifer Strickland said that the group had done work for the district before but had to “reorganize” after a partner in their former organization got into some legal difficulties.

One of SEC’s partners, Leon Rives II, who is also a partner in Rives & Associates, the accounting firm that unveiled WCPS’ financial catastrophe June 3, has had his accounting license suspended.

Rives also was notified by the North Carolina Board of Certified Public Accountant Examiners that, “By auditing clients during the same time period that (School Efficiency Consultants) was providing consulting agreements on a contingency basis, the Respondents have potentially violated 21 NCAC 08N.0303,” and that “the subsequent consulting services rendered by (School Efficiency Consultants) for clients that had their audits performed by (Rives & Associates) created a real or apparent lack of independence in violation of 21 NCAC 08N.042(a).”

• In an email sent to the New Old North June 19, Beaulieu identified one of his subcontractors as Lopes, the man who helped School Efficiency Consultants train and mentor former Finance Officer Michael Hayes — and, according to Dunsmore, “reorganize” the WCPS Finance Department before the bleeding began.

Beaulieu later said in an interview June 30 that he used Lopes on a very limited basis because of his familiarity with Wayne County Public Schools’ financial operations.

• During a presentation to the BOE June 29, Beaulieu noted that the decline in the district’s general fund balance, which went from a positive $7 million in 2015 to a negative $2.4 million in 2019-20, was most pronounced in the 2017-18 school year, but had been steadily dropping since 2016. He said among the areas where WCPS overspent was for contract services, including consultants.

Beaulieu also noted during his presentation that the district is not meeting statutory requirements — passing a balanced budget amendment, for example — and does not have complete, accurate and in-balance budget documents, concerns he said needed to be addressed.