Columbiana board to cut 28 jobs

Union contracts expire June 30.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
COLUMBIANA -- The village school board will begin Thursday to interview candidates for superintendent. Tonight, however, members are faced with reducing staff to work toward making about $1 million in cuts for the 2004-05 school year.
On tonight's agenda are recommendations to cut 12 teaching positions and 16 staff positions, a savings of about $700,000, Treasurer Lori Posey said. Reduction of the teaching staff will include one retirement and one nonrenewal, she said.
Cuts made earlier this year bring the total to about $1 million, Posey said. Among the personnel reductions approved earlier were four retirements, nonrenewal of the contract of the elementary principal and the special-education coordinator and the resignation of the technology coordinator.
Voters approved a 1-percent income tax in 2002 expected to generate about $1.2 million per year. Posey has said, however, that it takes about two full years of collecting the tax before the full anticipated amount of the revenue is received.
State officials overestimated the tax revenue to be generated, and the school board repealed some property tax collection since voters approved the income tax.
The board repealed a 6-mill emergency operating levy that otherwise would have been in place through 2003, and reduced the 2003 property tax collections by 7.6 mills.
Planning to restructure
Posey said some restructuring of positions will be part of the negotiations between the board and the teachers union, the Columbiana Education Association and the Columbiana Local Association of School Support. The contracts for both unions expire June 30.
The board hopes to hire a superintendent by June 1, so negotiations will be one of the first duties of the new superintendent, Posey said.
The superintendent will also determine possible restructuring of administrative positions to cover the duties of the elementary principal. An elementary principal could also be the special-education coordinator, for example, or the board could opt to hire an assistant principal and have a principal responsible for more than one building, she said.
Also on tonight's agenda is a recommendation for the board to approve $72,280 in service from the Columbiana County Educational Service Center for 2004-05. Posey said the money will pay for the services of a school psychologist, speech pathologist, a technology consultant two days per week and a supervisor of programming for gifted pupils.
Posey said the county educational service center provides the services for far less than the district would have to pay for separate contracts.