The district also is asking CAP to return a $25,000 grant it gave the organization last year and is refusing to pay an additional $25,000 promised for the coming school year.

That money is tied to a federal grant of $521,630 CAP stands to lose if it can’t get the $25,000 from another source.

CAP’s Family Center depends on the grant for half of its budget, CAP director of operations Jeff Wibberley said.

In addition to undermining Family Center funding, the district’s action cuts funding for teacher salaries and professional development for a Head Start program affecting about 400 SDL students and other youngsters from outside the district.

“It’s tragic,” CAP executive director Derrick Span said Thursday night. “It’s difficult because it involves kids. We cannot get them tangled in a dispute.”

The district’s action comes on the heels of a report by the state auditor general’s office that criticizes CAP’s record-keeping for an after-school program the organization ran for SDL.

Following release of the report, Span had sought to meet with district officials Tuesday to discuss a possible resolution to the dispute.

But the district canceled that meeting and sent Span three letters and a copy of the lawsuit it has filed against CAP, each signed by Superintendent Rita Bishop.

Bishop and SDL business manager Curt Baker confirmed Thursday night the district is severing ties with CAP.

“All programs with CAP are either expiring or being undone,” Baker said.

One letter, dated Aug. 29, says, “Effective September 1, 2006, the district will provide the services previously provided by CAP either directly or through another provider of such services.”

Another letter, also dated Aug. 29, says the district will no longer contract with CAP for its Early Reading First Initiative, among other programs.

The programs supplement the federal Head Start reading program, which is run by CAP. Early Reading First focuses on early language, cognitive and prereading skills that prepare prekindergarten children from low-income families for school.

While the 400 SDL children who participate in CAP-run Head Start activities still will receive services, SDL is no longer helping to fund the program, Diane Feeser, CAP’s Head Start director, said.

Officials Thursday could not say how much money will be lost.

“It will mean that for us to keep teachers, we’re going to have to figure out ways to cut budget items in other places,” Feeser said. “We want (teachers) to continue to do this work.”

Span said the action of the district came as a shock, but he has no plans to contact Bishop for an explanation.

“It’s startling to see this hemorrhaging of resources,” he said. “We’re just going to try and adapt and adjust.”

The district also is withholding payment of $535,149 for the after-school program CAP ran until last fall.

Those bills were not paid because CAP failed to submit invoices with crucial details, such as which employees worked in which schools and at what times, SDL officials said.

The auditor general’s report, released Monday, supported the district’s decision to withhold payment.

CAP has sued to recover the money. That case is pending in Lancaster County Court.

Baker said the district now plans to sue CAP for its poor invoicing practices on the Early Reading First programs.

“We can’t determine what services were performed,” Baker said. “We’ll let the court make a determination about the invoices.”

Baker said the district has given CAP plenty of opportunities to correct its invoices for all the services it once provided. The district will not pay any vendor without thorough invoices, he said.

The $25,000 grant the district provided for the Family Center also was the subject of contention earlier this year.

The district agreed to renew the grant in January with the stipulation CAP had to submit quarterly financial reports detailing how the money was being spent and how CAP planned to allocate funds in the coming months.

Span said he definitely sent the reports; Bishop said she absolutely never received them.

The decision to terminate the CAP contracts is administrative, Bishop said, and did not require a vote by the school board.

The board did, however, vote in a recent executive session to pursue the lawsuit, she said.

Span said he’s not sure what the loss of the contracts and funding will mean for CAP’s future, its staff and its programming.

“I’m going to continue to hold out hope that someday this nightmare will be over,” Span said Thursday, shaking his head. blog comments powered by Disqus