MADISON, Wis. — Democratic Gov. Tony Evers criticized the Department of Public Instruction on Friday for not acting sooner to address overdue financial reports from Milwaukee Public Schools.
In a letter sent a week ago, DPI threatened to suspend state funding for MPS over key reports the school district has failed to provide going back eight months. Evers, who previously led DPI as state superintendent, said Friday that the department should have escalated its tactics sooner.
“The Department of Public Instruction is one that — I used to run the joint for several years. And every year we had people that were late, and we kept bird-dogging them until they got the information in. In my humble opinion, the bird-dogging should have ended a long time ago,” Evers said.
The governor wouldn’t say whether he believed DPI should have raised warning flags before Milwaukee voters in April passed a referendum to increase MPS funding by more than $250 million.
DPI Executive Director Sachin Chheda told TMJ4 on Thursday that the department didn’t believe the situation was urgent enough in March and April, and that MPS officials had assured the state at that time that reports would be submitted soon.
Now, the department has ordered MPS to create a plan for how it will submit the overdue reports and avoid similar issues in the future.
When asked whether there should be changes in leadership or other reforms at MPS, the governor said he was waiting to see what the district’s report had to say.
"Am I concerned? Hell yes," Evers said. “Frankly, it doesn’t look good, but at the end of the day, we have to wait until the data is there. Then we can make those decisions."
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