State Officials Meet With Penn Hills School District Administration
PENN HILLS (KDKA) -- State officials were in Penn Hills Thursday to meet with school district administrators.
The meeting was held at the Penn Hills School District Administrative Offices at the Linton Middle School.
Experts and auditors from the state Auditor General's Office, the school board, and district administrators were closeted together for about three hours.
Nobody would talk after the meeting wrapped up, but sources tell KDKA's Ralph Iannotti the district was given details of a draft audit that the auditor general has finalized.
Last summer, when Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced that Penn Hills books would be scrutinized, he painted a bleak picture.
"I've been auditor general for two and a half years, we've never had anything like this, an $18 million problem out of nowhere," said DePasquale. "No school district in Pennsylvania has an issue like this."
The district's budget dollar deficit at one point blossomed to $30 million. It's resulted in dozens of teacher layoffs, program cuts and tax hikes.
When the school board voted last month to make drastic cuts, the school superintendent said the district's cash crunch was so severe that the district had to get financial help from the state Education Department to keep utilities on.
"Accepting money from PDE to help us keep utilities on after Memorial Day weekend last year, and our staff in our buildings confirmed that there were shut-off notices posted in our buildings," said Superintendent Dr. Nancy Hines.
Sources say the auditor general's audit found that it was not so much a case of bad book keeping, but rather mismanagement.
The man who once took oversaw Penn Hills books was Richard Liberto, the former Penn Hills School District business manager. He was placed on administrative leave with pay last year, then later, he was fired. He's never been charged with a crime.
He said the district's money woes are because of over-spending.
When KDKA talked to Liberto last summer, he said he welcomed the outside independent audit that was about to start.
"I think it needed to be done," he said. "I wish they had done this audit months ago."
Join The Conversation On The KDKA Facebook Page
Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On Twitter
This is looking more like a criminal investigation now, after local law enforcement officials removed documents from Penn Hills School District offices a couple of weeks ago.
Next month, the auditor general is expected to make his Penn Hills audit public.
