Federal prosecutors say two Dauphin County school districts were defrauded out of more than a million dollars by a school bus company. And now parents are outraged to learn they may not get all the money back.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Upper Dauphin and Halifax Area school districts lost a combined $1.4 million in this scheme and only about half of that has been paid back.
Harris Transportation Corporation and its employee Todd Harris will plead guilty next week to the charge of mail fraud. The U.S. Attorney's office says Harris was marking up the mileage statements for school buses and vans by about 10 to 30 percent. The corporation's attorney talked to FOX43 about the case.
"Further investigation revealed that was happening for a number of years," says Adam Klein, attorney for Harris Transportation Corp. "It quickly became clear that Todd Harris who's an employee of Harris Transportation was behind the inflation scheme."
It allegedly went on from 2008 to 2011.
Halifax Area School District finally saw the discrepancies in an end-of-year audit. Both districts now use other transportation companies.
School district administrators had no comment. Attorney Adam Klein says the bus company is shut down. It paid out $770,000 back to the districts.
There will be a restitution order for the rest. But Klein says that money may be gone.
"Todd Harris will be responsible for the balance of that and I don't know about his ability to pay," says Klein.
