Board OKs 6.9-mill levy for May primary election

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
STRUTHERS -- The Struthers Board of Education, at a 10-minute special meeting Tuesday, approved placing a five-year, 6.9-mill levy on the May 2 primary election ballot.
The state Financial Planning and Supervision Commission is expected to also approve placing the levy on the ballot at a special meeting at 3:15 p.m. today. The commission has financial oversight of Struthers schools because the district is in state-declared fiscal emergency.
The deadline for submitting the tax issue to the Mahoning County Board of Elections is 4 p.m. Thursday.
At a special meeting last Friday, the school board tabled the levy issue. President David Barone said the board would delay putting it on the ballot until the November general election if it did not receive the state auditor's financial forecast for fiscal year 2006 in time to place it on the May 2 ballot.
The auditor's report, presented at Monday's meeting of the financial planning commission, satisfied board members, and Tuesday's approval of the levy was unanimous.
The levy would generate about $1.06 million a year, but only half of that, $530,000, in fiscal year 2007, which runs from July 1, 2006, to June 30, 2007, because the school district would not begin to collect the tax until January 2007, according to schools Treasurer Michael Evanson.
The district is expected to finish fiscal year 2006 in the black. However, even with $273,000 worth of administrative cuts made by the board in January, to take effect July 1, the district would experience deficits without passage of the levy, Evanson said.
Joseph Funai, financial planning commission chairman, said Monday that the 6.9-mill levy is pivotal to the district's financial turnaround.