West Allis school district turns to taxpayers after blowing through $17.5 million in reserves

Annysa Johnson:

Andrew Chromy knew when he signed on as director of business services at the West Allis-West Milwaukee School District in October 2014 that the suburban Milwaukee district had overspent its budget by $5 million and was dipping into its fund balance.

It was not a best practice. But sometimes there are legitimate reasons to tap those reserves, which every district keeps on hand for cash flow and emergencies.

It wasn’t until three months later that he started to suspect something was seriously amiss.

While preparing for the annual spring 2015 debt payment, Chromy found a reference to a $2.59 million bill — for money borrowed to fund retiree benefits — that had never been budgeted.

Alarmed, he began digging through district accounts, department-by-department. What he found was a “muddy” accounting system with few internal controls — and millions of dollars in expenses that exceeded the district’s budget or were never budgeted at all.

“In all honesty, I was not sure how we were going to function the next year, we were so grossly over,” Chromy said.

That was just the beginning. By the time Chromy and the district’s auditors finished digging, they would find at least $14 million in overspending during the 2013-’14 and 2014-’15 school years alone — on everything from salaries and benefits to teacher training and technology — and questionable practices dating to at least 2007.