KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - The Kansas City school district owes the state $192,730 for falsifying its attendance data for three years in a bid to regain full accreditation.
The Kansas City Star reports that the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education confirmed the amount owed on Tuesday.
The district said last month that seven officials were involved in falsifying the data from 2013 to 2016 under former Superintendent Steve Green 's leadership. Green has denied knowing that employees were tinkering with student attendance records under his watch.
The manipulation led the state to overpay the district because it funds schools in part based on student attendance.
Attendance is among the criteria the state uses in giving out performance scores that determine whether a district meets full accreditation.
The Kansas City district was unaccredited from 2012 to 2014, when it gained partial accreditation. Although it continued to receive extra monitoring, it avoided being subjected to a law that allows students to transfer from unaccredited to accredited districts, with the unaccredited districts picking up the tab.
School officials said the district intends to submit the repayment within the next two weeks.
Considering the district's annual operating budget is more than $257 million, the amount owed is "not catastrophic," district spokesman Ray Weikal said.