Interim treasurer 'going home'

The Harding band will go to Hawaii in November.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The city school board Tuesday accepted the resignation of Merri Smith, interim schools treasurer.
Smith, who joined the city schools as assistant treasurer in March 2005, will become treasurer of the Maplewood Local School District on April 25 and her contract there will end in January 2009.
"Maplewood is my home school district. An opportunity came up. They called and asked if I would be interested, and it's always nice going home," Smith said.
Smith said she declined the Warren school board's offer to become treasurer. "It was a hard decision for me because I like it here," she added.
A graduate of Maplewood High School and Youngstown State University, Smith had been assistant treasurer and interim treasurer in the Hubbard schools before coming to Warren.
When Smith became interim treasurer in Warren after the October resignation of treasurer Philip D. Butto IV, the board increased her pay from $46,200 to $72,200 a year. The Maplewood job will pay $48,000 a year.
At Maplewood, Smith replaces Janet Ward, who resigned last month to become Columbiana County Career and Technical Center treasurer.
Marching band trip
The board approved a trip by 120 members of the Warren G. Harding Raiders Marching Band to Honolulu for the Nov. 24 Waikiki Holiday Parade, which will coincide with the 65th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and voted to provide $25,000 toward the trip. Besides that amount, the $1,700-per-student cost will be covered by student payments, donations and fund-raising.
Pearl Harbor veteran Adone "Cal" Calderone of Niles, a tuba player and retired executive director of the W.D. Packard Concert Band, will make the trip with the Harding band.
Other business
Board Member Edward Bolino announced that the new baseball field at Warren G. Harding High School will be dedicated at 1 p.m. April 22. The district's past state baseball champions and runners-up will be honored and, after the ceremony, the Harding baseball team will play Warren JFK.
Superintendent Kathryn Hellweg said Tuesday that Warren schools expect to file within the next two weeks revised attendance figures with the Ohio Department of Education for the first full week of last October -- the week upon which $5,200 per pupil in annual funding is based.
Warren school officials said they were investigating last month an anonymous complaint that attendance figures that week may have been manipulated.