Wamego USD 320 Superintendent Josh Meyer claims that special education funding in the special services cooperative it hosts is in “crisis mode” and blames member district, USD 329 Wabaunsee, for some of the shortfall.
“We are trying to keep our head above water,” Meyer said, according to the Pottawatomie County Times. “We’ve cut as far as we can, and we’re legally obligated to provide services.”
Meyer told the board that the state just finalized final revenue numbers and “we’re getting less than anticipated.
“We’ve gone through every expense and we still have expenses for personnel costs for June, July and August,” he continued. “We don’t know where that will flesh out until later this month when we run payroll. We’ve spent all our reserve cash down to zero, and we’re hoping some personnel cost won’t come in so high.”
According to the Times, he added that this comes after the $275,000 extra assessment the board approved last month. “And that assumes 329 (Wabaunsee) pays their fair share as asked to do.”
Not so fast, Wabaunsee Board of Education President Aaron Popekla said in an interview with The Sentinel.
USD 329 board can’t get straight answers from Wamego
According to Popelka, there are significant issues with USD 320’s accounting, and the district is unwilling to pay any additional assessment until three conditions are met: a forensic audit of the cooperative’s books, a renegotiation of the memorandum of understanding between Wamego, Wabaunsee, and the Rock Creek district, which form the co-op, and a plan to control expenses going forward.
“We got a notice that there needed to be an increase in assessment mid-year,” Popekla said. “Last check we had from financials was that we had a surplus that evaporated, and so we started asking questions about where did all this money go and what have we done to control costs and get our budget in line.”
Popelka said that — as the host district — Wamego controls the finances and all employees, but money for running all other aspects of the Wamego district is separate from the coop.
Indeed, financial documents provided to The Sentinel show that in 2023, Wamego said the ending cash balance was $1.1 million, in 2024 it was $1.2 million, but in 2025 the balance was $675,101 and it is budgeted to be zero at the end of the 2026 school year.
Comparing those financial statements sent to co-op members with the data that Wamego provided to KSDE in its budget filings reveals multiple discrepancies. Revenue appears understated for 2024 and 2025, and expenditures are overstated, which results in the ending fund balance being undereported. The ending balance for 2023 reported to member districts is also lower than reflected on the Wamego records.
There is also a major discrepancy in the Wamego accounting records between the 2025 ending fund balance and the beginning fund balance for 2026. The ending balance of one year should be the beginning balance for the next year, but the 2026 beginning balance is about $481,000 lower.
Wamego is deliberately overstating expenses in 2026 by assuming the co-op will have no money left at year-end.
The Sentinel asked Meyer to explain these issues. He didn’t answer our questions about previous years, but admits that the budget numbers for the upcoming school year were “cushioned”
“All of our budgeted funds are inflated to ensure that we have authority to spend that money as this is the published budget,” Meyer said.
Meyer didn’t address specific oddities in the 2026 budget, including:
- Payroll expense budgeted to increase by 6.7%, but Social Security payroll tax budgeted to increase by 18.5%.
- Professional Technical services in School Administration are increasing by 28%
- A new expense of $277,491 in the Other category of Central Services.
Wamego officials say they don’t know where that money went or why an additional assessment was needed.
Moreover, Popelka said the superintendents for each district form the “governing council” of the co-op and had recommended a $500,000 reduction in the budget for the coming school year.
“We’re a very small rural district compared to the other two,” Popelka said. Wamego is the big dog here, Rock Creek is kind of the middle-sized district, and we’re a small district.
“Due to our geography and the age of our buildings, and how our district is structured, we don’t have any additional taxing authority. We’re maxed out on our capital outlay, we’re maxed out on local option budget, obviously the state formula is the state formula, so we don’t have the ability in our budget to absorb higher assessments.”
Popelka said that an additional assessment would likely mean cutting staff in a fairly bare-bones district, but Wamego’s justification for the assessment was that the coop would otherwise need to cut staff.
“The justification is Wamego doesn’t want to let go of the staff that’s technically their staff, but is part of the co-op, and I understand that’s a hard decision, but … in order to pay the increased assessment, we would have to reduce salaries or let go of our staff to keep our budget in the black, and that’s what they don’t understand. It’s very frustrating to us, and we think that the last year or two, the co-op went on a hiring spree and probably has more staff than they need.”
Popelka said Wamego is unsure whether the “firewall” intended to keep USD320 monies and co-op funds separate was fully in place.
Additionally, Popelka said there are indications of payroll errors, resulting in people who have left the district being paid or employees being paid more than they were owed.
Co-op director reprimanded for asking questions about finances
Erika Bammes, until recently the director of the co-op, confirmed there were payroll issues, and documentation provided to The Sentinel reveals she was reprimanded for asking about it.
“In August of 2024 all of a sudden I had staff coming into my office on payday, this licensed staff telling me that they have been overpaid and have thousands of extra dollars in their bank account,” Bammes said. “I also had our classified staff, who are like our paras, coming in and reporting that they had been overpaid, or had been paid when they shouldn’t have received a paycheck at all.”
Emails provided to The Sentinel show that Bammes did ask about payroll and was eventually given a written reprimand by Meyers for being “unprofessional.”
Bammes says she was denied access to information about the budget for the co-op and told by Meyer, “We don’t want you to worry about the budget. We don’t want you focused on that at all. The budget’s in a good spot. We want you to put your focus into other things.”
Bammes said the business manager at the time — who has since left the district — had gotten behind on accounting, which she said is part of the problem.
“These payroll issues were happening, and the overpayments were happening before I came on board as a director, that then were really magnified in those first few months,” Bammes said. But nobody ever sat down within that business office or had accounting people sit down and go through all of that payroll systematically to determine all the people who were overpaid, because this wasn’t just happening with co-op employees.
“I mean, it affects my budget, and that’s what I’m concerned about, but they, for instance, overpaid a principal in the month of August alone, this principal was no longer working for them, and her new contract started July one in a different district.”
Popelka said they are aware of those overpayments, but no one seems to know just how many people were overpaid, by how much, or if the money was ever “clawed back” from the recipients.
In Kansas, employers have up to three years to recover overpayments, so some of the money may never be recovered.
“We have an idea of kind of what it might be, but we don’t have a solid number,” Popelka said. “More importantly, the district should have the legal authority to reclaim those funds, and we’ve got no confirmation they’ve done that.”
Ultimately, Popelka said, his district is left with few options.
“We can try to exit the co-op, which is difficult,” he said. “The state makes it difficult procedurally to exit. It’s possible, but then you also have the challenge of, okay, now we’ve got to go find another co-op or take on these special education expenses on our own, which could be tough.
“It’s been very frustrating from our standpoint.”
