GMC undergoing ‘special examination’ by the state

Published 1:59 pm Wednesday, February 15, 2023

The Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts (DOAA) is conducting a special examination of Georgia Military College, both the educational institution and DOAA have confirmed.

DOAA special examinations differ from financial audits. According to its website, the DOAA Performance Audits Division carries out these examinations to evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of state-funded programs and organizations.

“Performance audits and special examinations are more operational in focus as compared to a financial audit,” said Lisa Kieffer, director of the DOAA Performance Audits Division. “They basically look at the degree to which programs are accomplishing their goals, objectives, and meeting measures of effectiveness.”

The ongoing audit concerning GMC is looking at the following questions:

BULLETS

-What are the various funding streams of GMC?

-What is the governance structure of GMC as it relates to public resources?

-What options exist for modernizing the state’s obligations and oversight of GMC?

In a Monday, Feb. 6 sit-down interview with The Union-Recorder, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, president of GMC, said he was not shocked to learn that GMC would undergo a special examination when he received notice of it last year.

“The three questions that they laid out are probably the exact three questions that I know I’ve been hearing for years,” said Caldwell.

According to Kieffer, examination requests can come from either the state auditor or the state legislative appropriations committee chairs.

Last year’s request to audit GMC came from the desk of former state Rep. Terry England, who served as House Appropriations Chair for 12 of his 18 years in office. England decided not to run for re-election in Georgia’s 116th District last year, saying in a Thursday phone interview that “the tank was empty” and he wanted the freedom to spend more time with family and friends. Although England is no longer in office, the special examination is still being conducted.

England was asked what prompted the request that the DOAA conduct a special examination of GMC.

“Kind of several things,” he said. “For several years, GMC has been operating — and when I say this, I’m not shooting at them because it was allowed to be this way — GMC had been operating without a whole lot of state oversight as far as what they were doing or how they were expanding. A couple years ago they started adding lower grade levels like — I’ve forgotten now, but maybe fifth grade and fourth grade and maybe third grade or whatever — and had done that without really coming and asking anybody, ‘If we do this, will y’all be able to come help us and fund it the way we do,’ because it’s an odd and semi-unique partnership between the State and GMC because GMC is not a unit of the University System of Georgia. It’s not really a unit of the Georgia Department of Education. It’s not really a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia. It’s kind of its own beast.”

England added that the state’s examination will show how GMC’s various funding pieces fit together in order to figure out a way forward.

In a Tuesday email response to questions, GMC said that throughout its interactions with DOAA, the state department has maintained that the reasoning for the audit was to answer the aforementioned questions.

“We still have not been informed by the DOAA if there is any other reason for this audit, but regardless of the reason for why the audit was requested, we welcome this audit so that the legislative body can better understand how GMC operates and should be funded,” the school’s communications director Jobie Shields said. “Every year we travel to Atlanta to ask for additional funding that other schools receive automatically. Because of the ambiguity of our status within the state of Georgia, Georgia Military College misses out on millions of dollars in funding each year. When we go to the Capitol, we are continually asked, ‘who is Georgia Military College.’ We are hopeful that this audit’s findings will help us all get on the same page about funding for GMC so that we can continue our mission to contribute to student success and produce tomorrow’s leaders.”

A longtime grades 6-12 school, GMC Prep added fourth and fifth grades at the start of the 2018-19 year. Third grade was brought into the fold the next year, and grades K-2 became part of the student body in the 2021-22 term. When GMC Prep was operating as a 6-12 school, enrollment usually sat south of 600. Now with the K-12 configuration in place, GMC Prep houses over 850 students, according to the latest weekly reports published on the school’s website.

In a letter sent out Thursday, GMC Prep said it is, “fully recognized by the state of Georgia as a K-12 institution and is fully funded as such.” The letter goes on to say that plans to expand the Prep School were submitted as part of the annual submission of the school’s strategic initiatives to the state and communicated to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget (OPB).

“We did learn during this process that the legislative offices are not always informed of what is submitted to OPB, and this did cause confusion during the legislative session,” the school’s letter said. “We addressed those concerns adequately and have since made it standard operating procedure to inform all offices of any initiatives that have an impact on that state budget.”

One of the additional concerns raised by England was that despite receiving state funding, the state had not been represented on the GMC Board of Trustees. That was rectified last summer when state Sen. Russ Goodman was appointed to the Board as an advisory member by former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan. Goodman represents Georgia’s 8th District, which is located in the southeast portion of the state. GMC advisory board members like Goodman are non-voting members, but they are allowed to give their input on matters discussed at meetings. Voting members are elected from Milledgeville’s city council districts, and those individuals include Chairman George Hogan, Vice Chairman Mike Cobb, Doris Renfroe, Milledgeville Mayor Mary Parham-Copelan, Brooks Snider, and Elder Alan Wicker.

The former legislator England said he is a “fan” of GMC, and wants to see its success continue into the future.

“A big part of what we were doing with the audit is just looking at things to kind of help ensure the long-term viability and health of the institution and to make sure that those opportunities that they offer are going to be there for generations of kids to come and for years to come,” he said.

According to Kieffer, the Performance Audit Division published 16 reports in 2022 and 15 in 2021. She added that timelines differ for each audit, but that they typically take between seven and nine months to complete.

“Each audit is designed based on what questions we are trying to answer,” Kieffer said. “A lot of times we’re looking at effectiveness, efficiency and economy, those sorts of things. We develop an audit plan for each project, and that plan generally drives the timeline.”

DOAA said it has not previously conducted any examinations of GMC similar to the project currently underway.

It’s unclear at this point what changes, if any, may come to GMC following the state’s examination. DOAA only makes recommendations based on findings from said examinations. It’s up to either the examined organization or the state legislature to make any changes.

“There’s usually recommendations that come out about best management practices or best practices that should be looked at going forward,” England said. “That quite frankly is what we generally sort of lean on those reports to tell us. Is there something that we’ve all been missing that we all need to come to an agreement on? Is there a better way to do what we’ve been doing? That sort of thing.”

No timeline was given for the completion of the special examination of GMC. Completed DOAA reports are published on the department’s website, audits2.ga.gov.