Did "he" cost the state $400 mil, or did one of his underlings who filled out or filed something wrong? From what I remember hearing about it, it was something incorrectly filed.
And besides, taken from the outside view (living in Florida now), education is a local issue, there shouldn't be federal funding necessary for it. Its another piece of the reasons why our federal deficit goes up and up and up. It becomes a shuffle of blame, the state throws their hands up in the air and says "we can't manage this" and the federal government swoops in with cash stolen from all 50 states. That way the state doesn't have to raise their sales/real estate/income taxes themselves, and can avoid blame.
But like any shell game or accounting gimmick, you can only get away with it for so long before it all falls apart. We saw it with Enron, we saw it with a bunch of the Wall Street groups, we saw it with banks, we saw it in Greece and are likely to see it soon in possibly Spain + Turkey as well. I think Ireland is at fairly deep risk too.