Combine 14 districts, speaker suggest

The League of Women Voters wants people to talk about school funding.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
BOARDMAN -- Joe Leonard of Lake Milton didn't offer any suggestions on how to improve school funding, but he sure had a suggestion on how to cut school costs.
Mahoning County has 14 school districts, each with a school board, a superintendent and a treasurer, he said.
Combining those districts under a single school board with one superintendent and one treasurer would immediately save about 1.5 million a year, said Leonard, state chairman of the Lake Milton Association Political Action Committee.
He was one of about 60 people who attended a League of Women Voters forum on funding of K-12 education in Ohio at Boardman Center Middle School.
Ohio already is spending about 1,000 more per child per year on education than neighboring states, Leonard said Monday after presentations on school funding issues by a 12-member panel.
Some, like Dr. Wendy Webb, superintendent of the Youngstown schools, came to the meeting hoping to hear about ways to improve school funding.
The panel talked about the funding system and its problems but not about how to raise money to help kids, said Webb, whose district is in fiscal emergency.
But the session was a beginning, she said, a way to get people talking about the problems with educational funding in Ohio.
"We want this issue to be talked about, because it is important to everyone," said Suzanne Barbati, president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Youngstown.
Complex issue
Information presented at the forum was designed to inform the public about the complexity of the school funding issue, said Barbara Brothers, who handles voter services for the league.
The league is looking for people interested in forming a Northeast Ohio group to pursue the educational funding issue, she said. People were encouraged to sign up after the meeting.
Making changes is no easy task, Jennifer Economus, legislative specialist with the Ohio School Boards Association, told the crowd. Forums like this one can make a difference, she said, urging those in attendance to write letters to or call their state legislators to pressure them into taking action to improve school funding.
What legislators said
The state House and Senate no longer have any oversight over educational spending, said Rep. Kenneth A. Carano of Austintown, D-59th.
The two legislative bodies abolished their joint education oversight committee when it began to question financial accountability by schools, he said.
"The mechanics of the [funding] formula are broken," said Sen. John Boccieri of New Middletown, D-33rd.
As a district's property tax value increases, the amount of state aid to that district decreases, according to the formula, Boccieri said, calling it a "Robin Hood effect" that essentially takes state money from wealthier districts and gives it to poorer districts.
One result of that approach is the frequency of emergency levies showing up across the state, he said, pointing out that 75 percent of them fail.
Dr. Richard Denamen, superintendent of the Mahoning County Educational Service Center, added that Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties are losing a combined 31.6 million in annual state subsidy funds to charter schools.
gwin@vindy.com