A legislative committee voted unanimously Thursday to conduct a special audit of Solution Tree, a company hired by the state to assist with teachers’ professional development.
What began in 2017 as a $4 million no-bid contract with the state has morphed into a $16.5 million contract over the years, and some legislators are questioning if that money is being spent how it should be, Rep. Grant Hodges (R-Rogers) told the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee’s executive subcommittee.
“We continue to hear about, ‘Oh, they’re really doing a great job,’ but I can’t find out how many school districts have moved from an F school to a C school,” Sen. Linda Chesterfield (D-Little Rock) said. “We are literally spending millions of dollars with Solution Tree. We need to know specifically where our public dollars are going.”
Solution Tree, based in Bloomington, Ind., has a presence in all 50 states and Canada. Their website claims that its professional development products and services — such as workshops, books, videos, consultations and online courses — help kindergarten through 12th grade educators raise student achievement.
Rep. Grant Hodges (R-Rogers) said he and other legislators became aware that Solution Tree was receiving payments not just from the state Department of Education, but from education service cooperatives, school districts and higher education institutions in Arkansas.
Taking a deeper look, Hodges said the group of legislators — which includes Chesterfield, Hodges, Rep. Hope Duke (R-Gravette) and Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro) — found that Solution Tree had received funding in excess of $140 million from the state, school districts and educational cooperatives.
“That’s really the intent of the audit,” Hodges said. “We’re just trying to ask for all expenditures to Solution Tree, or any companies associated with them.”
Hodges told the committee they want the audit to uncover the contracts that have been entered into with this company and how those came to be; if there is a conflict of interest of school district employees doing contract work for Solution Tree; and if the state procurement process was followed correctly.
“In talking with audit staff, we believe there might be a violation of our procurement policies,” Hodges said, adding that a look at Solution Tree’s website shows the company openly encouraging school districts to use federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds. ESSER is a program created and funded by the pandemic relief and stimulus bills passed by Congress in recent years.
“I suspect a lot of the money that’s been spent at the school district level was the federal ESSER funds,” Hodges said. “We just want to have a better sense of how that money was spent and that the rules were followed.”
The contract with Solution Tree was inked in 2017 at the recommendation of former state Department of Education Commissioner Johnny Key, who served under former Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
The no-bid contract was approved after Key told state procurement officials that there could be no other provider for the services because Solution Tree researched, developed and trademarked the Professional Learning Communities at Work program.
Chesterfield said Solution Tree has its “tentacles” spread across the whole state and it has become “very difficult for us to follow where that goes.”
“We entered into a contract for $4 million dollars and it was supposed to provide professional learning communities training for teachers. That was it,” Chesterfield said. “We did not know they were going to call on co-ops to provide money. We did not know the school districts were going to have to kick in money. We did not know that higher ed was going to have to kick in money. That’s why this is such a different kind of animal than we have traditionally dealt with.”
Sullivan said the audit was vital for transparency’s sake.
“We don’t know if it’s legal or illegal, who owns them or how our money is spent, but that’s the number one responsibility of the legislature to know how our money is being spent,” Sullivan said. “Once the transparency is out there, then we can make decisions as to if we need to dig deeper.”
The audit will likely be a lengthy process, but time is of essence, Sullivan said.
“In just a few months, we’re going to be voting on their funding,” he said. “If we dig into some things we find out that we’re not comfortable with, then the legislature needs to be aware of those things before we start funding that $4 million dollars or other parts of it.”