MUNCIE — One year ago this month, the chief financial officer at Muncie Community Schools blew the whistle on fiscal mismanagement of the district.
The CFO, Bruce Perry, named names during a school board meeting in the auditorium at Southside Middle School.
He got the crowd of two hundred or so riled up. They shouted and applauded. Twice, school security chief Chuck Hensley threatened to shut down the meeting after the crowd became boisterous.
A week later, Perry mysteriously left the community, less than two months after his arrival. His reason did not become public knowledge — until now.
He was one of the people recently interviewed by The Star Press in connection with a review of years of school board meeting minutes, audit reports, financial reports the district filed with the state, a video of the whistleblower meeting and other records to try to answer the question so many people in Muncie want answered:
Who was responsible for blowing the school district's $10 million bond issue of 2014?
It was largely that misappropriation that brought district overspending to a head, sending the city's school system into a tailspin, onto the desks of heavy-handed state lawmakers, into the hands of state-appointed emergency managers and now to the brink of being taken over by Ball State University.