Time for Youngstown schools to celebrate and resolve

It was almost as if Ohio's law establishing state oversight for financially troubled schools was written for the Youngstown City School District.
It was not only that Youngstown was the first district to be declared in fiscal emergency, just months after the law went into effect five years ago. The district provided a case study for why a state law was necessary.
The numbers: When the Youngstown district was declared in fiscal emergency in September 1996, it was facing a budget deficit of $13 million and accumulated debts of $43 million.
Year after year, the board of education refused to enforce on itself the fiscal discipline that was necessary, finding it easier to go to the state loan fund for help rather than to look for ways of cutting costs in a bloated operation. Board members, for instance, knew that the student body had shrunk and that schools had to be closed, but they lacked the political will to make those tough decisions.
In the 41/2 years since the state named a financial oversight commission to monitor school district expenditures, we have not always been enthusiastic about the process. We expressed our view more than once that the commission should take a more proactive role, not only in cutting expenditures, but in demanding some of the changes that would have provided a stronger educational experience for Youngstown's students.
That said, on the eve of Youngstown's being removed from fiscal emergency, we must commend the commission and its chairman, Jeff Hundt, for a job well done.
State Auditor Jim Petro is coming to Youngstown tomorrow. If he doesn't use the visit to announce that Youngstown is out of the fiscal emergency, there will be a lot of shocked people in the city.
Petro's visit will be cause for celebration, to be sure. But more important, it will be an occasion for the re-empowered school board to firmly resolve that having once been in fiscal emergency, the city schools will not go there again.
What's ahead: This is an important time in the history of the city school district. In addition to the good fiscal news, the schools continue to make slow-but-steady progress in improving student test scores and reaching other goals set by the state department of education.
And, of course, the district stands on the threshold of one of the biggest building programs in its history, with $130 million in state money allocated to build new schools and improve old schools in the city. As we have said before, the design and building of these new schools also provide the district with an opportunity to redefine its educational mission. With the buildings should come new programs and greater efficiencies, all to the benefit of the students.
The only thing that shouldn't come with the district's removal from fiscal emergency is complacency. It took nearly five years for the district to claw its way out of a financial quagmire. It would take far less time for the board to sink back in if today's board members become as careless as those of the past.