Life in Harrisburg can be wonderful, but it also can be a test of one’s temper.
The most recent smoke-from-the-ears news arrived last night, when Peggy Morningstar, the school district’s new chief financial officer, told the school board that she may have unearthed about $12 million that the district hadn’t previously accounted for. This comes just months after yet another round of school tax increases and staff furloughs, in addition to salary cuts.
Shocking? Not really.
Last year, covering the school district’s budget hearings, I was left scratching my head on how, over the course of a month, a threatened $17 million budget deficit could just shrivel up and disappear. Here’s what I wrote in July 2012:
Nevermind.
That was the message that rang forth from the Harrisburg school district last month.
Remember that multi-million deficit and unbalanced budget? Nevermind.
The cancellation of kindergarten, of all school sports, of band, of extracurricular activities? Nevermind.
Residents, taxpayers, parents, schoolchildren, furloughed teachers—please forget about the recent past because nothing has really changed after all.
Like most city residents, I’m delighted that public education in Harrisburg has not been stripped to the bare bottom. Harrisburg’s children already have lost much over the past few budget cycles, and they cannot afford to lose any more.
However, the rapid, perplexing shrinking of the deficit—from $17 million to $8 million to $6.6 million to a balanced budget to a surplus with all the cuts restored—underscores an unfortunate truth: living in this city has become an unceasing leap into the great unknown.
At the time, I repeatedly asked school officials how this could happen. Yes, some of the extra money came from last-minute state aid, but that assistance flowed in only after school officials threatened the near-collapse of the system: no sports, no kindergarten, no extracurriculars. In my mind, the head-spinning financial reversal was never adequately explained, nor has it been explained in other years when this same pattern–massive, crippling deficits suddenly disappearing–has been repeated.
The Harrisburg school district seems to suffer from terrible financial management, or perhaps something more calculated is occurring. Either way, it’s concerning.
Chief Recovery Officer Gene Veno told me today that, while the extra money is probably not enough to give taxpayers a refund or restore salary cuts, he plans to find out what is going on. For her part, Morningstar said she would prepare a more extensive report and present it to the school board soon.
Based on those results, Veno may order a forensic audit, which would open the books into years past, he said. That might finally reveal why the district has been on a financial roller coaster ride for so long, a pattern that must come to an end.
