A Prince George’s County substitute teacher was paid more than $7 million in 2022 — and two months passed before the school system recouped the funds.
That was the most remarkable finding in a new legislative audit of the county school system, which described a number of ongoing issues with the system’s payroll, procurement and human resources procedures.
The Maryland Department of Legislative Services audit also found that the school system failed to consistently complete a screening process for employees who have contact with children, and that it failed to investigate 9,376 missing items identified in a 2023 inventory, which were valued at about $6.3 million.
School system contracts also came under the microscope, and auditors concluded that the school district’s “procurement policies were not sufficiently comprehensive and were not consistently used when obtaining goods and services.” The school system did not always prepare written justifications, or seek school board approval for expenses, according to the audit.
The audit, dated March 25 and sent to the legislature’s Joint Audit and Evaluation Committee, said the 2022 overpayment for the substitute teacher occurred when a school system employee mistakenly entered the teacher’s identification number in the “hours” field. That led to the teacher being paid for approximately 73,000 work days, rather than three.
School system officials didn’t realize the overpayment had occurred until more than 50 days later. They recovered the funds within a few days, the audit said.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Christine Condon over at Maryland Matters
