School board members await action by state authorities

State auditors will be checking the district's finances.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
SALEM -- The Salem Board of Education is waiting to see what the state will do about the district's troubled finances.
Superintendent Stephen Larcomb said Friday that the next decision may come in January.
The district has been operating under an Ohio Department of Education fiscal caution since September.
Larcomb said the state may decide to let the district stay under the caution until the May primary, when the board plans to again ask voters to approve more revenue.
Some 54 percent of district voters rejected a 4.3-mill levy in November that would have raised $1.3 million a year for five years.
The district has made some cuts, including reduced busing effective in January, and announced plans to make others, which includes closing and consolidating schools. The district doesn't want to close buildings in the middle of a school year.
The board on Thursday approved general fund appropriations of $16.6 million in revenue, expenditures of $18 million, and a deficit of $1.3 million. The numbers were sent to the state.
Decision coming
The Ohio Auditor's Office will make the decision to declare a fiscal watch or a fiscal emergency, based on district figures and other actions.
Under a fiscal watch, district officials would still run the district. Under a fiscal emergency, the state would appoint a five-member board that would oversee the schools.
Courtney Whetstone, a spokeswoman for the state auditor's office, said both a watch and a fiscal emergency are triggered by specific financial situations.
To go into a watch, one trigger would be that the district must have a projected operating deficit for the current fiscal year between 2 percent and 8 percent of the district's general fund revenue for the preceding fiscal year. Another trigger is that the district has not passed a levy. Either could trigger a watch.
An emergency could be declared if the projected deficit for the current fiscal year exceeds 15 percent of the district's general fund from the year.
School financial officers weren't available to comment on whether the district's financial figures would hit those limits.
Larcomb said the district is in contact talks with teachers which include discussions about staff cuts. Those plans might not go into effect until the end of the 2005-'06 school year.
But if the district sinks into a fiscal emergency and the state takes over, Larcomb said, "then all bets are off."
wilkinson@vindy.com