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Tightening budgets offer challenge for local schools

Schools tread water as economy calls for tighter budgets

Jean-Jacques DesFosses has been using a thermal imaging camera at Mason schools to find areas in need of insulation repair. DesFosses says that the device has helped save thousands of dollars in energy costs for the school. Staff photo by Nick DaggyThis is the creditline

Staff photo by Nick Daggy Jean-Jacques DesFosses has been using a thermal imaging camera at Mason schools to find areas in need of insulation repair. DesFosses says that the device has helped save thousands of dollars in energy costs for the school. Staff photo by Nick DaggyThis is the creditline

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GARY STELZER/MBR Lakota East High School students walk the halls during class change. Staff photo by Gary Stelzer

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Karenne Cobb and Taylor Launicker look through a high school planning book during lunch at Vail Middle School in Middletown. Staff photo by Gary Stelzer

GARY STELZER/MBR Karenne Cobb and Taylor Launicker look through a high school planning book during lunch at Vail Middle School in Middletown. Staff photo by Gary Stelzer

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By Staff Report Updated 3:12 PM Friday, March 12, 2010

Monroe Local Schools

The Monroe Local Schools are in good shape financially since voters approved a 9.71-mill substitute continuous levy last November.

The levy will raise more than $3.5 million for operating expenses and is replacing three levies set to expire this year and in 2011.

Monroe Schools Treasurer Kelley Thorpe said the district is stable this year and not planning to make any cuts.

“We’re OK for this year; we’re not looking at anything between now and the end of the fiscal year,” she said.

“For next year though, with adding a kindergarten class, adding some additional teachers, we’re going to be looking at some possibilities but nothing in stone.

“My forecast with us passing the substitute levy last year actually has us in the black until 2014,” she said.

Thorpe said this does not mean the district will specifically look at making cuts, but rather examining ways to maintain the level of spending it already has.

“Even if we have to add teachers or if we have to expand programs, we can still maintain the forecasted areas,” she said.

“There are a lot of uncertainties with the state’s budgets after next year so that’s what we’re going to be watching. ... For right now, with the substitute levy passing, we’re stable for the next couple of years anyway.”

Fairfield City Schools

Six years ago, voters in the Fairfield City School District approved a levy under the promise that it would carry the district for three years.

“Given the state of the economy, we are doing everything we can to stretch it even further now,” said superintendent Cathy Milligan in a prepared statement. “That means making cuts.”

Milligan said that making cuts are difficult, however, because the district already spends between $1,000 to $2,000 less per student than similarly sized districts in the region and because it lost another $2 million per year with the expiration of a five-year permanent improvement levy expired.

And then there are the state cuts that every district in Ohio must endure.

To counter, Milligan said she has already started making cuts by eliminating three administrator positions.

“Also, all of our administrators are going without pay raises this year, even the highest performing individuals,” she said.

In addition to individual school and department budgets, Fairfield has not purchased a school bus in three years.

“We are responsible for maintaining 10 large school buildings,” she said, “but we are deferring all maintenance on them except for critical repairs.”

In order to continue to reduce the budget, Milligan said that she has begun an initiative to get community input for ideas that would help save money.

“The schools belong to the community,” she said. “Our task is to make the cuts that will do the least damage.”

Hamilton City Schools

According to treasurer Robert Hancock, while some school districts were able to use recent federal stimulus dollars to add programs, Hamilton used the money to “fill as many gaps as we can.”

The district’s current construction program also allowed it to re-organize the elementary school system to re-structure some expenses, and the only additional personnel hired in the process was one clerical position.

“Where businesses talk about ‘up-sizing’ or ‘down-sizing,’ we talk about ‘right-sizing,’” Hancock said. “We’re always looking for things we can do differently to save money.”

Two years ago, for instance, the district opted into accepting open enrollment students from neighboring districts, which garners additional money from the state. This year, Hamilton earned $634,000 from open enrollment, Hancock said.

“We did that without adding staff, just by filling empty seats and not over-filling our buildings,” he said.

A longer-term strategy the district employs is to monitor teacher retirements and making incremental reductions without offering retirement incentives.

“When a district offers retirement incentives, that tells me they haven’t managed their staff very well,” he said.

“We try to avoid falling off a financial cliff,” he said, noting that the district hasn’t had an operating levy on the ballot for 16 years. “A district gets there by not right-sizing on a consistent basis.”

Lakota Local Schools

With an enrollment that has exploded in recent years, topped off with a slew of non-funded government mandates and steadily declining revenue from the state coffers, the Lakota Local School District has been forced to take a two-pronged approach to increasing its resiliency this yea —budget cuts and a tax levy.

“We’ve had to be very creative,” said district spokesperson Laura Kursman. “It’s got to be a combination of things. Living in a regulated world makes our situation a lot different than a business.”

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