In 2018, Denver voters created the Prosperity Denver Fund, a pot of cash paid for via a 0.08% gross sales tax that companions with native nonprofits to provide out faculty scholarships to low-income college students in Denver.
However this system struggles to confirm pupil eligibility, hold correct information and doc funds, in accordance with a report launched Thursday from the Denver Auditor’s Workplace.
“That is yet one more voter-approved tax that’s bringing in vital income — however with little metropolis supervision for a way these {dollars} exit the door,” Denver Auditor Timothy O’Brien stated in an announcement Thursday.
The fund raised $8.9 million in 2019. That determine jumped to $14.5 million by 2022.
The Auditor’s Workplace reviewed 7,570 scholarships and located 155 fee requests missing sufficient information to find out if the scholar was eligible for this system primarily based on their residency standing. The report stated that fund employees adopted up with associate organizations to substantiate eligibility however didn’t doc that course of.
Initially, college students wanted to dwell in Denver for 36 months earlier than attending postsecondary schooling to qualify for this system. However fund officers stated the town was solely in a position to distribute round 40% of the cash raised, partly due to the residency necessities, which they stated had been a barrier for college kids with out paperwork to show they lived within the metropolis, experiencing homelessness, college students who lacked authorized immigration standing and households priced out of Denver. In Might, Metropolis Council widened the age and eligibility standards for this system for that purpose.
Prosperity Denver Fund board member Stephen Kurtz stated that figuring out pupil eligibility has been tough, particularly through the pandemic.
“We have now quite a lot of college students that don’t have a house, we’ve quite a lot of college students who’ve households which can be separated and somebody might dwell in Aurora and somebody might dwell in Denver and transferring round continuously,” he stated at a Thursday assembly presenting the audit.
The report famous that the current modifications handed by Metropolis Council will make bettering compliance with eligibility necessities “considerably simpler.”
Fund employees additionally agreed with the info assortment points discovered within the audit.
The report stated Prosperity Denver Fund’s information “is fragmented and accommodates inaccuracies and lacking particulars.”
“We’re in whole settlement that our present assortment of information and our processing of information must be introduced into the twenty first century,” Kurtz stated.
Kurtz stated Prosperity Denver Fund prioritized getting cash to college students in want, even when information factors had been lacking.
“If, due to the group’s lack of capacity to provide us all the info we would like, we felt compelled sufficient that that was a Denver pupil, low-income Denver pupil, that was going to a Colorado schooling, we made the choice, let’s assist the scholar, although we is probably not checking each field as we have to alongside the best way,” he stated. “However we all know that we’ve acquired to enhance that. We gained’t be again right here through the subsequent audit.”
The audit additionally discovered issues with the fund’s reimbursement processes.
Prosperity Denver Fund companions with quite a lot of native nonprofits to provide scholarships out to college students, and the report discovered that some associate organizations lacked information verifying funds and reimbursements and paid out mistaken quantities to a few college students. In a handful of circumstances, college students additionally obtained scholarships from nonprofits with out affirmation that they met educational progress necessities, in accordance with the audit. Fund employees stated they adopted up with nonprofits and confirmed eligibility.
Metropolis officers attributed the issues partially to an absence of staffing. The stated that affected the fund’s capacity to assist smaller grassroots nonprofits with out as a lot administrative sources.
“One of many largest considerations that we’ve had in our workplace is that we’ve skilled huge progress during the last a number of years,” stated Melissa Janiszewski, Government Director of the Denver Workplace of Kids’s Affairs. “We’re coping with employees capability, our incapability to meet up with all the work that we’ve.”
Janiszewski stated her workplace requested a devoted employees particular person to assist oversee particular income funds just like the Denver Prosperity Fund. As well as, Janiszewski agreed to all eight suggestions from the Auditor’s Workplace to enhance information assortment, reimbursement processes and program documentation.
