INDIANAPOLIS – Last year, Indianapolis Public Schools officials warned of a looming $30 million deficit in the district’s budget, and forecast as many as 10 school closures to make ends meet.

Today, the massive deficit is mysteriously gone.

It wasn’t due to budget cuts, a bunch of money from the state or federal government, or anything special done by Lewis Ferebee, the district’s new superintendent.

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The deficit was a ruse the district’s previous school administrators had been perpetuating on the public for years, according to Chalkbeat.org.

Ferebee, who took over interim superintendent Peggy Hinkley’s position in September, reviewed the district’s finances over the winter break and realized something wasn’t right. By his calculations, IPS ended 2013 with an $8.4 million surplus, and warnings to the community about the district’s massive $30 million looming deficit were simply untrue.

Ferebee confirmed his findings with the district’s legal counsel and professional accountants before announcing the deception. Ferebee theorized that school officials for years “intentionally overstated expenses to protect our cash balance,” and highlighted the problem recently to come clean with the public, Chalkbeat.org reports.

“I had a lot of emotions,” Ferebee said of his discovery. “It was very disappointing for me that we were communicating we had a budget deficit when we actually didn’t.”

“I’m at a point now where I feel like I have enough information to confirm that we don’t have a structural deficit,” he said, according to the news site. “I think it’s important to be transparent with the community.”

Ferebee said the new budget reality means the district likely won’t issue a round of drastic cuts to teaching jobs and student programs that have become an annual tradition at IPS.

“In recent years under former Superintendent Eugene White, the district made nearly annual announcements of deficits, which led to layoffs, pay freezes and cuts in programs and services for students. Ferebee said he believed those reports of deficits were designed to quietly keep a strong cash balance to cover any unexpected expenses that might otherwise be difficult to address during the school year,” Chalkbeat.org reports.

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“Board members and the public were led to believe IPS was falling short financially, he said.”

Ferebee told IPS board members the nearly $40 million discrepancy in IPS’ $274 million budget for 2013 appears to be the result of budgeted expenses that were never actually spent, including money set aside for a magnet high school that never materialized, and district officials never reconciled the projected budget with actual spending.

“The figures showed $13 million in salaries and benefits set aside for employees who apparently were never hired. Another $8 million was set aside for consultants and other purchased services that were never contracted,” the news site reports.

Of course White and former interim Superintendent Peggy Hinkley “were skeptical” of the new superintendent’s take on the district’s finances. Just last year, Hinkley warned that IPS may be forced to close as many as 10 schools because of its budget problems.

White told Chalkbeat that holding back the planned spending was by design.

“It was an expenditure budget,” he said. “You could control your expenses but you couldn’t control your revenues. It had been that way for a long time before I was there.”

He also provided an example of the expenses built into the budget as “cushion.”

“There were athletic teams appropriated for each school,” he said. “Even if they didn’t have a team, we still budgeted those amounts. You have to have some cushion for error.”

The deception in Indianapolis certainly isn’t the first time school officials have tried to fool taxpayers.

In Pennsylvania, where school and union officials have blamed Gov. Tom Corbett for allegedly cutting school spending (he actually increased spending substantially), Philadelphia Daily News columnist John Baer revealed 500 school districts were actually holding $3.5 billion in unreserved fund balances.

As Baer put it, “so it seems a lot of tax dollars are being held by schools,” despite continuous cries for increased education spending.

At the top of that list was the Lower Merion school district, which had a fund balance of about $55 million in 2011-12. Yet a publication from a group called “Friends of Public Schools” reported that the district had a budget deficit of $304,306 that year, which made it necessary to eliminate two administrative positions, special education placements outside the district and cuts in the number of paraprofessionals for special needs students.

Other hoarders were the Downington school district ($38 million in reserve), Bensalem Township ($31 million) and Radnor Township ($18 million).

The examples in Indianapolis and Pennsylvania should give taxpayers across the country pause before blindly agreeing to increase their tax burden “for the kids.”