(A) The Financial Literacy Board of Trustees shall establish internal evaluation policies and procedures for an annual review of the implementation of strategies and progress toward the interim goals and benchmarks. In instances where no progress has been made, the Financial Literacy Board shall provide targeted assistance or the board may terminate the grant. In addition, a program evaluation of the Financial Literacy Initiatives at the state and local levels must be conducted every three years by an independent, external evaluator under contract with the Financial Literacy Board of Trustees. However, the selected evaluator must be approved, and the evaluation overseen, by a committee consisting of three members, one appointed by the Financial Literacy Board, one appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and one appointed by the Chairman of the House Education and Public Works Committee. These committee members must be professionally recognized as proficient in accounting, finance, banking, tax, insurance, or a closely related field. The first report must be provided no later than January 1, 2010.

(B) Grantees shall agree to participate in an evaluation in order to receive a Financial Literacy grant. Subsequent grant approval and grant allocations must be dependent, in part, on the results of the evaluations. If an evaluation finds no progress has been made in meeting goals or implementing strategies as agreed to in the grant, the grant must be terminated.

(C) The purpose of the evaluation is to assess progress toward achieving the Financial Literacy goals and to determine the impact of the initiative on students at the state and local levels. The impact assessment shall include, but is not limited to, end-of-course evaluations and projects. During the course of the evaluation, if an evaluator determines that a state agency has failed to comply with the coordination and collaboration provisions as required in this chapter, the final report must reflect that information. Program evaluation reports must be reported to the General Assembly no later than three months after conclusion of the evaluation.

HISTORY: 2006 Act No. 382, Section 2, eff June 14, 2006.