Dublin board suspension hearing: State recommends removal

8:45 p.m.

The state Board of Education voted Wednesday to ask Gov. Brian Kemp to suspend and remove the Dublin City Board of Education.

The decision came after almost nine hours of testimony, followed by a more than hour long executive session before reopening the hearing for a 10-0 vote.

Lawyers for the Dublin board blamed former finance director for hiding the severity of the district’s financial problems. 

Six of the board’s seven members testified. All said they felt the board could work together to improve the district’s accreditation standards. However, several acknowledged recent dissension between members. 

However both Jeff Davis and Peggy Johnson testified they stood by earlier statements that perhaps the local board members should be suspended. 

“If y’all think getting rid of me will help the kids, then get rid of us,” Davis said.

5:38 p.m.

Former school finance director Chad McDaniel took the stand but answered few questions, repeatedly invoking his Fifth Amendment rights when called to the stand.

School attorneys and Dublin board members have accused McDaniel of deceiving the school board about the district’s financial troubles.

They also blamed him for the district not paying more than $6 million into the State Health Benefit Plan, and instead using the money to cover up the district’s money troubles.

2:05 p.m.

The Dublin City Schools could run out of cash again by October and need more of the advances on state funding that helped the district survive the past fiscal year, a state official testified at the board’s suspension hearing Wednesday. 

“It’s my understanding that they’re going have a cash flow problem this fall,” said Amy Rowell, director of the Georgia Department of Education’s finance review and grants accounting division. 

School board attorney Brian Smith described the local board members as “blindsided” last August, when state officials revealed Dublin City owed more than $6 million in overdue payments to the State Health Benefit Plan.

However, Rowell testified the board had approved a deficit reduction plan with the state months earlier, in January 2025, when unaudited information showed the system operating at a deficit.

The board also had submitted monthly financial reports to the state that clearly indicated the system was in the red.

“They were signing those reports that showed monthly deficits,” said Rowell. 

A longtime employee with the state DOE, Rowell said Dublin City’s financial struggles are a “systemic problem,” noting the district has been in a deficit almost every year since 2009.

“There’s not another district that has had the level of financial difficulty for this long.” 

11:20 a.m.

The Dublin City Board of Education blamed its financial crisis on “multimillion dollar fraud” by its former finance directors, a school attorney argued Wednesday at the board’s state suspension hearing. 

Financial director Chad McDaniel “intentionally and knowingly hid” the district’s cash flow problems from the board, attorney Brian Smith told the state Board of Education.

“He was told to do so by the financial director who trained him. … This board was betrayed. The taxpayers were betrayed.”

Smith said in his opening statement that McDaniel is being investigated by both state and federal authorities.

“Criminal charges may be coming, hopefully,” he said. 

The Department of Education lawyer David Younker laid the blame at local board members’ feet, noting it had operated in a deficit for two decades before COVID relief funds allowed it to balance the books, briefly, from 2021 to 2023.

“In a district serving 2,300 students, they burned through $20 million and they were still $13 million short in 2026,” Younker said.

Before testimony began, Younker introduced numerous documents as evidence, including 3,800-page binders given to each state board member. 

 Younker said Dublin board members for years were or should have been aware of the district’s financial troubles. 

“They signed the reports. They signed all the plans,” he said. 

The Dublin board is facing possible state intervention after its accrediting agency Cognia downgraded its rating earlier this year. The hearing is taking place a year after it was revealed the school system mishandled teacher and staff portions of insurance payments and failed to make payments to the state benefit plan. 

Testimony from school officials, past and present, is expected later today as the hearing continues in Atlanta.  

Check back for updates later in the day.