Education Agency, Texas
A Combined Report on the Texas Education Agency
- A Follow-Up on the Assessment of the Texas Education Agency's Monitoring Systems for Public Education
- A Follow-Up on the Review of Management Controls
- A Review of Compliance With Senate Bill 1, 74th Legislature
February 1998
Report Number 98-021
Overall Conclusion
While management of the Texas Education Agency (Agency) has taken positive initiatives that begin to address many of the recommendations identified in the following State Auditor's Office reports, it is too early to evaluate the overall success and impact of these initiatives. The two prior reports are: (1) An Assessment of the Texas Education Agency's Monitoring Systems for Public Education (SAO Report Number 96-072, August 1996), and (2) A Review of Management Controls at the Texas Education Agency (SAO Report Number 97-074, December 1996).
While some Agency initiatives are complete, many are currently in progress with implementation dates scheduled between now and September 1998. We reviewed the Agency's progress to date and identified opportunities for additional improvements to the Agency's monitoring systems and internal management control systems. As a result, we will further assess progress on these initiatives and recommendations during a monitoring review of the Agency scheduled during fiscal year 1999.
Key Facts and Findings
The Agency improved the monitoring systems for public education related to curriculum, academic compliance, financial compliance, and data quality. The Agency's financial compliance monitoring of education program allocations continues to need improvement. The Agency still needs to ensure school districts' financial compliance with indirect cost limits.
- Monitoring school district expenditures of $3.1 billion in Foundation School Program special allotments to ensure compliance with state law.
- Testing school district data input by relying on independent auditors to ensure the information is accurate and of high quality.
The Agency is improving the quality of data used in calculating the student dropout rate.
The Agency strengthened its overall control environment and management control systems. The management of human resources related to the evaluation, training, and development of staff members has improved. Management has taken action to improve the effectiveness of the internal audit function. However, improvements are still needed in the review and approval of contracts. Internal Operation's performance measures were developed, but performance measures are still not required for all divisions. Agency property accounting records have not been reconciled to the State Property Accounting System in more than five years.
The Agency complied with the directives mandated in Senate Bill 1, 74th Legislature. These directives included downsizing the Agency, reducing the number of state rules and regulations that apply to school districts, transferring operations to other state agencies, and developing accountability systems to monitor the public education system.
Contact the SAO about this report.
Download the PDF version of this report. (.pdf)
HTML Equivalent (utilizing Adobe's PDF Conversion by Simple Form).