WARREN -- The Head Start program in southeast Arkansas is no longer under local control.
The Southeast Arkansas Community Action Corp. board voted Tuesday to relinquish the program after a federal report outlined problems with financial management, services for children and attendance.
The report, issued in July, gave the agency 120 days to fix the issues, but the agency did not meet the deadline. Officials at the Administration for Children and Families then gave the board members three options: relinquish the program, appeal the decision to a panel of three judges, or allow termination.
Relinquishing the program means that the corporation may be able to regain control in September.
Board members told employees, who attended the meeting to speak during the public comment portion, that they don't yet know who will have control over the program.
Head Start is a government program that provides early childhood education to families with low incomes. Southeast Arkansas Community Action Corp. runs 10 programs across Ashley, Bradley, Chicot, Desha and Drew counties with just over 200 children enrolled.
Amy Howard, the agency's Head Start program director, said they didn't meet deadlines for correcting the problems cited in the federal report because the agency has been understaffed. The accounting department consists of one person, and the former executive director was also working as the finance director, she said.
The board voted Tuesday to suspend Howard for 10 days without pay because of the missed deadlines.
Board members questioned her for several minutes while she gave an update on the Head Start program.
"When you found out about the corrective actions that needed to be taken, what steps did you put in place to make sure that those timelines were met?," board member Andrew Tolbert asked several times.
Other board members suggested that Howard didn't do anything to correct the problems.
"I don't think saying we didn't do anything would be correct," Howard responded.
The federal report says the program didn't have a financial management system that allowed oversight and didn't have "effective procedures for determining allowability of costs."
It also said that the program didn't do enough to encourage attendance or track attendance data that could be used to identify kids with "patterns of absence."
Children's progress within the program also wasn't tracked, the report noted.
The report also points out that no one made sure that all employees had gotten criminal background checks.
Head Start employees will have to reapply for their jobs, board members said at Tuesday's meeting.
Isierene Spinks, a board member, asked repeatedly if something could be done to reassure employees that they would keep their jobs.
"We can't do that," replied Tolbert.
Employees said in a heated exchange with board members that, because of the pending change in management, they are getting little information about what is going on and anticipate a delay in getting their paychecks.
Marquisha Bridges, a Head Start employee, said the director sent a text message earlier in the week telling her and others that they wouldn't be paid on schedule. Their next paychecks were set to go out Thursday.
NW News on 03/21/2019