This article was originally published in InvestigateWest.
An audit of the Oregon Department of Early Learning and Care found the agency could benefit from stronger oversight and equity training to improve governance of the state’s early learning system.
Auditors’ findings, issued in a letter from the Secretary of State’s audits division to agency director Alyssa Chatterjee on July 24, align in part with critiques of the department voiced by current and former staff in an InvestigateWest investigation published in March. Employees sounded alarms — including one who contacted Gov. Tina Kotek — about what they saw as the agency’s failures to foster equity, retain leaders and manage programs that serve Oregon’s lower-income families.
Auditors spoke to at least three of those employees to learn more.
Their final recommendations urge agency leaders to regularly review disciplinary decisions made by child care licensing investigators to ensure they are being made fairly; expand required equity and bias trainings; and improve coordination between regional and statewide authorities and among the various preschool and child care programs that the department manages.