Hickman Mills faces state audit and a projected $12 million shortfall

By Kathy Feist

It was a busy Thursday for Hickman Mills School District on August 21st, and not in a good way.

First the attorney general announced a full audit after its investigation into a whistle blower complaint regarding oversea trips to Africa and China and a $1.4 million contract buyout with a technology company.

A press conference followed, where incoming Superintendent Dennis Carpenter announced they were hiring their own auditing contractor to speed the audit along.

A few hours later at a packed school board meeting, Carpenter introduced a budget analyst who showed that the school district was now facing a $12 million deficit.

No questions were taken at the school board meeting. But the questions were obvious: How could the previous administration be so off on its calculations? Was all this money lost to field trips? Will teachers’ salaries, which were just increased with a voter-approved tax levy, be affected?

Many, mostly teachers, left angry and confused.

Because the school board meeting left little explanation as to why there is a $12 million deficit, the Telegraph has spent the last few days attempting to decipher the details. This is what we have uncovered.

State Audit

After investigating a whistleblower complaint, State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick announced a full audit of the Hickman Mills School District.

He believes travel expenditures paid for with school credit cards “may not have represented the appropriate use of school funds.”

“School-funded trips to Ghana and China raised red flags for many parents and taxpayers in the Hickman Mills School District,” he stated.

Though funding for the trips was not approved by the school board, members maintain that they were paid with a state grant.

“To ensure alignment and transparency, the initiative was presented to representatives of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) based in

Kansas City in October 2024. Additionally, the initiative was formally incorporated into the Comprehensive School Improvement Plan for Ruskin High School,” reads an in-house statement addressing the investigation earlier this year.

Receipts shared with the Telegraph show $42,200 was paid to the travel company Wonder and Tour Africa LTD for the Ghana trip. Another $17,681 was paid with a credit card for airfare, immunizations, food and business cards. The Telegraph does not have access to the China trip receipts.

Fitzpatrick’s other concern was a $1.4 million contract buy out with the technology company K12ITC & Civic ITC (formerly known as Menlo).

“At a time when the school district is struggling to gain full accreditation, it’s best they use the hard-earned tax dollars of district residents on providing a foundational education that prepares students for the future.”

At the press conference following the announcement, Carpenter said the school would hire an outside auditing firm to speed up the process.

$12 Million Deficit

Jaws dropped to the floor when budget analyst Jason Hoffman said that the school district was facing a $12 million deficit.

Hoffman, Vice President of Investment Services at PTMA Financial Solutions, was hired to present a revised version of the Projected Fund Balance calculated in May.

Those calculations use the information available at that time.

In May, that included a preliminary estimate on property tax revenue sent from Jackson County in February.  That estimate is updated and sent to school districts again in July.  And finally in September, the most accurate property tax values are issued for levy-setting purposes. (According to county records, Hickman Mills will experience a $7 million decrease in property tax revenue in the upcoming year, which can be can be adjusted with a tax levy.)

Revising a Projected Fund Balance is normally not done until September when it takes into account not only the county’s tax valuations, but numbers for enrollment and income from grants.

Hickman Mills’ August revision is unusual.

“Something didn’t add up,” says Carpenter as to why he chose to revise the May projections.

The May projections had an ending surplus balance of $21.4 million. The new August projection is $11.8 million. The difference is $12 million which is what is being called a “deficit.”

“A $12 million deficit is misleading,” explains former superintendent Yaw Obeng who was let go by the school board in July for no cause. “A fund balance is not a deficit. It means an excess in funds over your operational cost.”

In other words, based on the August calculations, the district has $11.8 million in addition to the funds available for operating costs. Last year, the surplus was $24.3 million.

Previous years show surplus increases and decreases of only a few million from that number, though it has been decreasing since the voter approved bond and levy were passed in 2022.

The May projection of $21.4 million appears to be more in line with those trending numbers.

Hoffman did not provide answers for the huge shortfall. “The revenues I was given for the FY26 budget were provided by the CFO and were not generated by me,” he told the Telegraph in an email. “I do not have access to any of the detail that made up those revenue or expenditure projections at this time.”

While Obeng believes the word “deficit” is part of the confusion, Carpenter believes the problem is more than semantics.

“A superintendent with a trained eye must be able to look at numbers and do something about it,” he said at the meeting. “That didn’t happen.” He believes staff was encouraged to inflate the numbers.

In his defense, Obeng insinuates that the numbers are now being deflated. “People are trying to create a crisis so they can come out and say they solved it as the hero,” he says. “This is a preliminary projected budget because the final numbers are not validated until September.”

Who is right will be determined in the fall.