The Louisiana Department of Education exercised sound oversight in administering federal recovery aid to the state’s school districts for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a federal audit has found.
The Jan. 31 audit report by the inspector general’s office of the U.S. Department of Education concluded that the state “provided reasonable assurance that [hurricane] funds were appropriately allocated” to districts and non-public schools.
The audit examined the state’s process for distributing funds in a $750 million federal grant program that Congress created as part of the Hurricane Education Recovery Act to address the needs of districts ravaged by the 2005 storms. The money could be used to replace textbooks, cover some transportation costs, and pay teacher’s salaries, among other uses.
