EAST LIVERPOOL Schools to be under state guidelines

EAST LIVERPOOL -- The city school district will receive state help with budgeting and in getting a loan to help it recover from fiscal emergency.
The nearly 3,000-pupil district is being placed on that status by the state auditor's office, schools Superintendent Douglas Hiscox said today.
The fiscal emergency is being declared based on a district funding deficit that's expected to swell to between $2.5 million and $3 million by the end of the school year, Hiscox said.
A state loan will help shrink the deficit, he added.
It will be repaid through a reduction in the state's annual funding to the school district.
The reduction will mean that the district must cut costs. The state will help guide that process through a financial recovery strategy, Hiscox said.
District officials have not sought a levy to ease the fiscal crisis.
The district's tax base is so weak that it would take a massive levy to make up the funding shortfall. Chances of such a measure passing would be dim, Hiscox said.
"Why put our efforts into something that wouldn't be a resolution?" he asked.