Calling Michael Masch to account in schools budget mess

I SHOULD HAVE kept my hand down.

It felt like the right thing to do at the time, considering it meant helping my alma mater - Northeast High - by joining a committee focused on improving communications education.

But I didn't really have the time. I stopped showing up, I didn't return calls. Or emails.

I failed hundreds of students at my own high school.

I'm not the only one, of course. Our city is filled with adults who have fallen short - from overpaid superintendents to self-serving politicians to bad parents - failing in our duty to give the city's kids a chance to succeed.

I plan to use this space to call out those who, like me, have dropped the ball. I also will salute the thousands of teachers, principals, students and parents who work to give kids in the city's schools a chance.

Let's start with the district's recently demoted finance chief, Mike Masch, who definitely dropped the ball.

Plenty of people have played a role in a catastrophe that seems to lead to millions of dollars in cuts announced every few months, including another $61 million hole revealed last month.

But of those who signed off on the district's budgets, he's the highest-ranking official still getting paid. Even with a demotion to "special adviser" to the district's new chief recovery officer, Masch is still making $180,000.

Worse, the district plans to pay outside contractors to clean up the financial mess left by Masch's office. Yesterday was the deadline for applications from firms proposing to devise a plan to close this year's deficit and create a balanced budget for next year.

The district says that it's too early to say how much that'll cost, which means it won't be cheap.

Although Superintendent Arlene Ackerman was Masch's boss and the School Reform Commission signed off on their plans, Masch isn't blameless.

It was Masch who crafted a budget for the 2010-11 school year that used one-time federal stimulus dollars to pay for ongoing programs.

It was Masch who failed to create long-term five-year financial plans, even though that was something he ordered the district to do when he was then-Gov. Rendell's budget secretary in 2007.

With Ackerman and Masch at the helm, city and state officials had little confidence in the numbers that the district presented last year as it worked to overcome unfair budget cuts from Harrisburg.

"Mike Masch has a unique way of talking for a really long time without answering any questions," Councilman Bill Green said. "If I were on the SRC, I'd vote to remove him."

For what it's worth, Ackerman has attempted to lay the blame at Masch's feet, calling him incompetent in an email she sent to him in July 2009.

Perhaps things would have worked out better if Ackerman actually had talked with her finance chief. For whatever reason, sources say that they stopped discussing the budget by spring 2010.

I've been trying since mid-December to speak with Masch. Perhaps he's too busy making sure that his family's taxes are paid, to avoid another Daily News story about falling behind on his taxes.

Those who have worked with him in the world of finance describe his way of budgeting as "Masch-a-Matics." They say he "gives his interpretation of the facts, not the facts."

They describe him as "technically brilliant" but with personality flaws that keep him from having good working relationships needed in times of crisis. They say that he controls the flow of information to make sure that he's always the "smartest person in the room."

After more than 30 years in public service, he has his supporters. Donna Cooper, who worked beside Masch as Rendell's policy chief, describes a man dedicated to making sure that important programs get funded and that waste gets rooted out.

"There is a track record of evidence of Michael informing the SRC of the impending budget problems," Cooper says and, in fact, Masch did first raise his concerns publicly in October 2010.

"I think [Ackerman's claims are] sour grapes and it's disappointing that the press carries that sour grapes, because I don't think there's any evidence behind what she's saying."

But at the end of the day it's about the results. And the results over the last two years have been a series of shortfalls, followed by larger shortfalls, followed by epically disastrous shortfalls.

There's plenty of blame to go around. And plenty of reasons Mike Masch shouldn't still be making $180,000.