GEAR UP Article

From: Sanford Shugart
To: All Faculty and Staff
Date: 06/04/03 4:39 PM
Subject: GEAR UP Article

No doubt, many of you have read or heard about an article in Sunday's Sentinel alleging some failures in the Gear Up program.

I don't have any reason to believe that the Sentinel would attempt to put us in a bad light, but as I read the story knowing the facts, I would have to say that the article portrayed a Chestnut Horse as a Horse Chestnut. In other words, some of the facts were accurate if out of context, but the conclusions were not.

Nevertheless, these are the steps that I took as soon as the article appeared:

1. Even though we have gone over this many times, I asked our senior staff to review the grant matching calculations again.

2. I communicated to them that if we were in the wrong in any way that we would issue a correction before being asked to do so.

The result of this review produced the following:

1. The Gear Up program has accomplished very worthwhile and meaningful results; supporting middle and high school students, often in at-risk situations. Program expenditures that meet the letter of law don't guarantee results, but in this case our program did both.

2. The College followed the written rules and directions as well as verbal guidance provided by the US Department of Education program staff.

3. There is no issue regarding misspent funds; rather, the question is how the rules direct us to value in-kind contributions such as donated facility use. Apparently, the Department of Education staff and the auditors are in disagreement on the best method to use.

4. The College, at the direction of the grant application and the US Department of Education program staff, employed rules that require us to establish a fair-market value for the use of in-kind facilities. We are not leasing these facilities, only calculating a periodic and temporary in-kind contribution. This fair market value was first established by using the rates charged by public and private schools in our vicinity for the use of similar facilities (about $75 per hour for a classroom). Later, because we were using many types of facilities in addition to classrooms (computer labs, gymnasiums, cafeteria, meeting rooms, etc.), we asked an independent certified appraiser to conduct an up-to-date fair market value appraisal of comparable facilities of each type, again to meet both the spirit and letter of the federal regulations. This produced a range of $25 per hour for office space to $150 per hour for a cafeteria, with a variety of rates for computer training rooms, etc.

5. Contrary to the implication of Sentinel, the revised rates were not used to increase our matching funds. We would meet our matching requirements under either method.

6. These very issues are being reviewed by the Department of Education now. We are confident that they will agree with our position.

7. The college chose to discontinue the Gear-Up program precisely because we were not given an unambiguous and timely answer to our request to clarify a disagreement between two departments in Washington which created operational problems for us. I hated to recommend this action, but couldn't continue to put the college in the middle of this disagreement that could potentially create serious financial liability.

8. What we are dealing with here are technical matters caused by discrepancies in federal guidelines and rules, not matters of program performance.

My only interest in this is to do the right thing and I can assure you we will.

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