It's over: New era dawns on MPS as state board of education intervention ends
By the week's end, Montgomery Public Schools will be free from the state's intervention, a process that's taken nearly 5 years to complete.
At the beginning, top leadership roles were vacant, the district failed to submit timely budgets, the system's finances were in shambles and student achievement was questionable.
Three state superintendents oversaw the intervention. Several schools were closed, one of which was later sold to Pike Road. A new chief financial officer was named, and an audit of the district's finances revealed misappropriations of funds. Those cases were turned over to law enforcement for prosecution.
The system suffered a loss when the Booker T. Washington Magnet High School building burned, scrambling to house students in a repurposed elementary school. Walls have gone up on the land for a new BTW, with the school set to open by the start of next school year.
More: MPS intervention timeline: What happened and when it occurred
The community sided with MPS voting in favor of increasing property taxes to raise the millage rate from 10 to 22, an estimated $33 million in additional funding. Montgomery property owners will not begin to pay the increase until 2023, with the district receiving the funds the following year.
February 2017 started what would be a long, and tumultuous process, but that ends Wednesday. The Alabama State Board of Education unanimously voted in June to release the system beginning December 1.
"We made improvements in every area that the state raised as a concern," MPS Superintendent Ann Roy Moore said Wednesday. "One of our greatest accomplishments was regaining full accreditation and, in the process of that, receiving a glowing report from the accreditation firm Cognia. We have greatly improved our financial situation, and we also have boosted our academic achievement."
As a requirement for release, the state mandated that the system maintain a 1½-month balance in reserve — more than what the state requires of all other systems.
Montgomery Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Arthur Watts, during a budget hearing in September, said the financial health of the system was robust compared to the years leading to and at the beginning of the intervention.
"I think the board has done an amazing job at streamlining expenditures," he said at the beginning of the meeting. "There were some tough decisions, but they held together and we saved several million dollars as a result."
By the end of the 2022 fiscal year, Watts estimated the district would have about $67.9 million in reserves.
"I’m extremely excited about MPS beginning a new chapter. On Wednesday, our first day free from state intervention, we launched a campaign with the message ‘It’s a New Day,' Moore said.
"Part of that is celebrating what we have accomplished, and part of that is creating a new sense of purpose and excitement about the future. We want people to know that we are not stopping here and that we are going to continue to improve."
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Kirsten Fiscus at 334-318-1798 or KFiscus@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KDFiscus
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery Public Schools released from state intervention
