MUNCIE — The State Board of Accounts (SBOA) has cited Muncie Community Schools every year for more than a decade for millions of dollars in overdrawn cash balances in multiple funds.
Under a bill enacted by the Legislature and signed by the governor this past week, public officers at MCS and other audited entities who ignore accounting guidelines/laws in the future could face prosecution to force them out of office.
The Star Press asked State Examiner Paul Joyce, who heads the SBOA, if his agency's warnings to the Muncie school corporation over the past decade might have been too brief and weak? The same bureaucratic boilerplate appeared in every audit report since at least 2005:
"The cash balance of any fund may not be reduced below zero. Routinely overdrawn funds could be an indicator of serious financial problems which should be investigated by the governmental unit. (Accounting and Uniform Compliance Guidelines Manual for Indiana Public School Corporations, Chapter 9)."
"Could be an indicator of serious financial problems?" Was that putting it too lightly for a school corporation now judged by the state to be so fiscally impaired that it must be state supervised?
"In retrospect, I would probably say, 'Yeah,' " Joyce said in an interview."Yeah, it could have been stronger. I am not personally a big fan of 'may' or 'could be' (an indicator of serious financial problems). But our job is purely to report. Whether or not people read the reports and do anything from the reports, whose job is that? I don't think pointing fingers will do any good at this time … Why didn't the media report on it? Shouldn't that be a headline? How did the media allow this to happen? It's not the media's fault … The school board was spending the money. They are the ones who were informed and told, and the ones that made the decisions. I think the buck lies right there. I won't take responsibility for it."