{"id":726585,"date":"2023-01-31T18:01:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-01T00:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/?p=726585"},"modified":"2023-02-16T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T20:35:09","slug":"oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma Attorney General: Vendor Not To Blame for Misspent Education Relief Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Oklahoma\u2019s attorney general on Tuesday dismissed the state\u2019s lawsuit<\/a> against a vendor hired to distribute federal education pandemic relief funds, finding the allegations made under his predecessor \u201calmost wholly without merit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former Attorney General John O\u2019Connor filed the lawsuit in August, alleging Florida-based Kleo, the parent company of ClassWallet, failed to properly monitor the funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gentner Drummond, who defeated O\u2019Connor in the GOP primary and took office Jan. 9, said he will now focus on whether any individuals or state officials should be held accountable for the role in what he called an \u201cegregious misuse of tax dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is clear that a number of state actors and other individuals are ultimately responsible for millions in misspent federal relief dollars,\u201d Drummond said in a written statement announcing the dismissal. <\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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The dismissal marks a change of course in the state\u2019s investigation into misspending under the federal COVID-19 relief program. More than half a million in aid dollars meant for children\u2019s education was spent on TVs, grills, furniture, Christmas trees and hundreds of other non-educational items, an investigation by Oklahoma Watch<\/em> and The Frontier <\/em>revealed.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

State officials hired ClassWallet in 2020 to distribute $17.3 million in federal Governor\u2019s Emergency Educational Relief funds, a program also known as GEER. ClassWallet provided services for two programs: Stay in School, which offered up to $6,500 in tuition assistance to private school families, and Bridge the Gap Digital Wallet, which provided $1,500 grants to low-income families to buy educational materials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oklahoma paid ClassWallet $650,000 from its GEER allotment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After misspent funds came to light, the state blamed<\/a> ClassWallet for allowing parents to use their platform to buy items \u201cnot directly tied to education.\u201d Records show the state could have limited what parents could buy, and instead gave \u201cblanket approval\u201d to all items from approved vendors, such as Office Depot and Staples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oklahoma\u2019s attorneys never served ClassWallet, which means the company didn\u2019t have an opportunity to respond in court \u2014 leading some critics to question whether the lawsuit was an honest attempt to recoup the funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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A spokeswoman for Gov. Kevin Stitt responded to the lawsuit\u2019s dismissal with this emailed statement: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe governor\u2019s office strongly disagrees with the decision to dismiss the state\u2019s legitimate effort to recover federal taxpayer dollars from a bad out-of-state vendor,\u201d said Kate Vesper, a spokeswoman for Stitt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ClassWallet, through a spokesman, said it was gratified the state dismissed the lawsuit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before he was elected state superintendent of public instruction, Ryan Walters helped ClassWallet secure the contract and made key decisions about the programs as secretary of education and as executive director of Every Kid Counts Oklahoma, according to an investigation by Oklahoma Watch<\/em> and The Frontier<\/em> published in May. Every Kid Counts Oklahoma was the public face of the Bridge the Gap program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former secretary of education Michael Rogers and Brent Bushey, executive director of the Oklahoma Public School Resource Center, an Oklahoma City not for profit, were also key to setting up the programs.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A watchdog agency in July recommended the U.S. Department of Education claw back<\/a> at least $650,000 in misspent funds and require the state to review an additional $5.5 million in purchases, according to a federal audit<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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Oklahoma returned $2.9 million in unspent GEER dollars to the federal government, at least some of which was reallocated to the state Education Department. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. Department of Education is working with Oklahoma officials to resolve the findings from the audit and strengthen its oversight of federal grants, said Roy Loewenstein, press secretary for oversight at the U.S. Department of Education. Few details have been provided, but Oklahoma Watch<\/em> has learned the state followed up with GEER recipients.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, the Office of Management and Enterprise Services emailed families about purchases they made with GEER funding. The email, provided to Oklahoma Watch<\/em>, asks: \u201cWhat was the particular purpose surrounding your purchases during the pandemic?\u201d And \u201cwere you homeschooling your children, or were they still in school?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional detail about the state\u2019s handling of GEER funds is expected in an annual review of all federal funds by the state auditor and inspector. That report is expected to be released between March and July.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jennifer Palmer has been a reporter with Oklahoma Watch since 2016 and covers education. Contact her at (405) 761-0093<\/a> or jpalmer@oklahomawatch.org<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter @jpalmerOKC<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Gentner Drummond says his investigation into misuse of pandemic funds will now focus on individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2622484,"featured_media":726588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"gigafact_has_fact_brief":false,"gigafact_remote_fact_brief_post_id":0,"gigafact_remote_sync_timestamp":"","gigafact_remote_sync_status":"","gigafact_remote_sync_response":"","gigafact_has_been_published":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"everlit_article_id":"","everlit_hide_embed":false,"everlit_embed_size":"","everlit_generation_settings":[],"_everlit_article_id":"","_everlit_hide_embed":false,"_everlit_embed_size":"","_everlit_generation_settings":[],"_everlit_content_hash":"","_everlit_metadata_hash":"","_newspack_byline_active":false,"_newspack_byline":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,46,523,13036],"tags":[19062],"series":[233],"coauthors":[401],"class_list":["post-726585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-government","category-news-alert","category-politics","tag-geer","series-virtual-schools","entry"],"fact_brief":null,"yoast_head":"\nOklahoma Attorney General: Vendor Not To Blame for Misspent Education Relief Funds - Oklahoma Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Oklahoma Attorney General: Vendor Not To Blame for Misspent Education Relief Funds - Oklahoma Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Gentner Drummond says his investigation into misuse of pandemic funds will now focus on individuals.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Oklahoma Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OklahomaWatch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-02-01T00:01:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-16T20:35:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1Inauguration14.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"801\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jennifer Palmer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jpalmerOKC\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@OklahomaWatch\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jennifer Palmer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jennifer Palmer\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/#\/schema\/person\/1f390a2cf6d59c40ea409ca99894fc79\"},\"headline\":\"Oklahoma Attorney General: Vendor Not To Blame for Misspent Education Relief Funds\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-02-01T00:01:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-02-16T20:35:09+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\"},\"wordCount\":725,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oklahomawatch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/1Inauguration14.jpg?fit=1200%2C801&ssl=1\",\"keywords\":[\"GEER\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Education\",\"Government\",\"News Alert\",\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oklahomawatch.org\/2023\/01\/31\/oklahoma-attorney-general-vendor-not-to-blame-for-misspent-education-relief-funds\/\",\"name\":\"Oklahoma Attorney General: Vendor Not To Blame for Misspent Education Relief Funds - 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