Three Harrisburg school board members asked detailed questions about nearly $250,000 in proposed spending at their last meeting, but no one in the room explained the expenses that were listed on the agenda.

One payment was believed to be for an information technology service, but the network manager for the district said he did not recognize the name of the company.

Another payment was going to a company that did not appear to have a contract.

The address associated with another company gaining a $10,000 contract for anti-discrimination training came back on a Google map search to a Pittsburgh home with a "for sale" sign in the front yard, said Board Member Carrie Fowler. There were no resumes attached to the contract to show the credentials of the people offering the training, she said, and the company used the district's old address on Front Street when the district hdsn't operated out of that building in four years. Also, the training had already occurred before the board was asked to vote on it.

One resident pointed out the math on that contract didn't add up and another resident asked why the contract was even necessary when the state Human Rights Commission provides similar training for free.

Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney and the acting Business Manager Bilal Hisan did not publicly answer any of the questions about the half-dozen checks and contracts.

Instead, the board then approved all the checks and contracts as part of more than $7 million in spending at its last board meeting on a split vote.

"How do we vote on things we don't have answers for?" Board Member Brian Carter said in frustration after the vote.

Carter, Fowler and Board President Judd Pittman had voted for a proposal to postpone a vote until they could get answers. But board members Danielle Robinson, Ellis Roy, Patricia Whitehead-Myers and Lola Lawson voted against any delays and voted to approve the spending. Board members Lionel Gonzalez and Melvin Wilson left in the middle of the meeting.

The split votes and unanswered questions have played out repeatedly in recent months at the public board meetings, which are drawing larger audiences than they have in years because of questions about transparency and decisions by the superintendent and nine-member board.

Despite the extra attention on the school board, however, answers still aren't forthcoming for many lingering questions from reporters, residents and the three outspoken board members. Those three board members represent the minority on the board, regularly out-voted by the majority of six.

"Why are we still wrapped in chaos and confusion?" asked city resident Gerald Welch during the public comments portion of the meeting. "You ask us for our thoughts and we're limited to three minutes (during public comment.) Then you go on, business as usual, with the same results...You need to do a better job communicating. We don't need vague explanations. We need transparency."

The day after the meeting, administrators provided answers to a PennLive reporter who asked about four of the contracts in question.

A $26,000 contract to Salisbury Behavioral Health was questioned by Fowler because she could not find where the board approved a contract with them and their website appeared to focus on adult mental health. What services are they providing to the district's students, Fowler had asked.

As it turned out, district officials said Salisbury is one of the district's special education placement provider for students with special needs. Salisbury Behavioral Health also does business as New Story, according to District Spokeswoman Kirsten Keys. The board approved the contract with New Story, Keys said.

More than $200,000 in checks were approved for Severin Intermediate Holdings, but Fowler could find no contract or company website or any background information about what they do.

Administrators said they believed the checks were for something related to information technology but the director got before board members and said he had not heard of Severin.

As it turned out, this is the District's (eSchool) web-based software provider for student data management which was acquired by a company named Power School. The board approved a contract with Power School, Keys said.

Payments of $7,538 to the law firm of Robinson and Geraldo were approved but Fowler said she could not determine what legal services they provided and the board solicitor, Samuel Cooper, could not answer the question.

As it turned out, this was the cost of legal fees that the district had to pay for a bargaining group employee's grievance, Keys said.

The contract for EJ Associates said the contrators would be paid monthly compensation not to exceed $10,000 but dates of service were listed for Aug. 1 through December 31. That's why a member of the public said the math didn't add up: Was the contract for $10,000 or $50,000, to cover the five months?

Keys later told PennLive the contract was intended to be for $10,000.

Board Vice President Danielle Robinson told PennLive any payments or contracts that end up on an agenda for a full board meeting have been vetted first by the budget and finance committee. She has repeatedly chastised other board members for asking detailed financial questions during the monthly board meetings, noting they should have asked their questions during the budget and finance committee meetings.

All board members are supplied with agendas for those committee meetings, with supporting documents, so they should questions at that time, Robinson said.

It's difficult for the superintendent or business manager or budget and finance chair to answer detailed questions during board meetings because of the sheer volume of checks and contracts being approved each month, she said.

Digging into details that may have already been tackled during committee meetings wastes everyone's time, Robinson said, and is part of the reason recent board meetings commonly last four hours and the meeting Aug. 20 stretched past six hours, adjourning at 11:40 p.m.

"It happens over and over again," Robinson said. "It looks like we're trying to hide something or doing something awful. But no, it's your responsibility to show up prepared for the meetings."

Fowler, however, countered that she works a full-time job and can't attend all the committee meetings. She said she reads all emails and documents, but can't get administrators to answer questions via email.

Agendas for monthly meetings also are supposed to be given to board members at least seven days prior to the meetings to provide time for research and questions, but that rarely happens, she said, and the committee chairman for budget and finance rarely produces notes or minutes from his meetings.

Board President Judd Pittman has had to tamp down several shouting matches at recent board meetings after financial questions were raised and not answered. He addressed Robinson's complaints that questions should be answered before the board meetings.

"The $204,000 (for Severin,) that would be something it would seem we should be able to answer regardless of when, where, why," he said. "And the attorney piece (for Robinson and Geraldo,) I mean I think that should be something we should be able to answer because it's going out of the bounds of the solicitor or the other folks we have retained for strategic purposes.

"I want to go home like the rest of the folks..but I think we need the answers. That's part of the problem."

Keys said the answers to Fowler's questions were available at the Aug. 20 meeting but no one shared the answers because it wasn't the proper venue.

"This information was available," she said in a written response to PennLive's questions." However, as stated during last night's meeting, the monthly school board meeting is not the appropriate forum to answer these kind of questions."

Keys would not address why administrators could not go ahead and provide the answers so members of the public could be informed once questions have been raised. Robinson said she believes she and others simply get tired of answering the same questions.

"Some committee meetings can go on for hours," she said. "We don't want to rehash all that again. There's absolutely no excuse to show up to the meetings unprepared. I've been CC'd on emails that answered these questions. This is not about getting questions answered. It's about putting on a show."

After the latest dustup, Pittman said the board clearly has a "process problem." He said board agendas need to be provided seven days in advance, as required by policy, and the typos and mistakes need to be fixed so the items listed make sense. Company names on contracts should match the checks.

Also, he said committee chairs should produce notes that can be distributed to all board members so everyone can have the benefit of questions and answers aired during committee meetings.

Then board members need to use the "power of the committees" to vet spending and proposals.

As one additional solution, Pittman proposed hosting a meeting the Thursday before school board meetings (which occur on Mondays) so agenda mistakes can be fixed and questions can be asked. Robinson said she would support such an effort.

But it's unclear whether the meetings would be public, because Robinson described the meetings as executive sessions.

As it stands, the board has executive sessions from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. prior to the start of the monthly board meetings. But the sessions typically start late and run long, delaying the start time for the board meetings.

"We're constantly trying to squeeze things into one hour," Robinson told PennLive, voicing support of a Thursday executive session. "We can hash out everything on the agenda so we're not having a circus during the meeting."

Under state law, however, the topics that can be discussed in closed-door executive sessions is strictly limited to personnel or protected information, legal topics or real estate decisions.

The adversarial nature of the board meetings in recent months "is not a good look for the board or district," Robinson said.

"It's frustrating to see after so much progress for the district," she said. "Then over the past seven eight months, how we've gone backward."

She's not the only one frustrated.

Jayne Buchwach, a leader of a new community group called "Catch," said some decisions by the majority of the board appear to be "rubber stamps" for the superintendent. The members in the majority and Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney simply don't like all of the questions and renewed scrutiny, she said.

Buchwach asked for published requests of requests for proposals through a Right to Know request and was denied through repeated 30-day extensions. Kia Hansard, another member of the group, filed an RTK for the resume for acting Business Manager Bilal Hasan, after the state education department sent a letter to Superintendent Sybil Knght-Burney in June saying he and the part-time CFO did not have the required experience or certification for the roles they are filling.

The district told Hansard they did not have an application or resume on file for Hasan.

The lack of answers and information do not promote trust, Buchwach said.

"This exemplifies the lack of processes and controls and the complete financial ineptitude of the district," she said.

Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct the title of IT director to network manager.