Lower tax payments squeeze Lakeview

A meeting Dec. 1 will
address the budget
shortfalls.

CORTLAND — Superintendent Robert Wilson says bad news from the Trumbull County auditor’s office last month has him planning for an uncertain future for the Lakeview school district.

Wilson said he learned that the Kmart Distribution Center in Bazetta Township and the Delphi Packard facilities in Cortland will be producing $300,000 less than anticipated in personal tangible property tax payments to the school district starting this school year.

The Trumbull County auditor’s office reports that Kmart’s valuation dropped from $13.2 million in 2006 to $5.4 million in 2007, and the valuation of the Delphi Packard plants in Cortland and Bazetta dropped from $6.8 million in 2006 to $1.8 million in 2007.

Kathy Huggins of the auvditor’s office said the valuations are determined by figures the companies turn in to the Ohio Department of Taxation.

The school district had anticipated a $300,000 carry-over this year but will now struggle to avoid a deficit, Wilson said. The district faces a projected deficit of $900,000 the next year, said Milton Williams, Lakeview treasurer.

Because the district will now have to project deficit spending as early as the 2008-09 school year, Wilson said he expects the Ohio auditor’s office to declare the district to be in a state of “fiscal caution” soon. Fiscal caution is the first of three levels identified by the state, the others being fiscal watch and fiscal emergency.

A board of education meeting is planned for 9 a.m. Dec. 1 to determine what cuts and/or levies will be necessary to offset the shortfalls, Wilson said.

The district faced financial uncertainty several years ago because of reduced tax receipts from Kmart, which emerged from federal bankruptcy protection in May 2003, Williams noted. But the company has remained delinquent in its tax payments to the school district, he said.

The Trumbull County auditor’s office indicated Kmart owes back taxes of $1,068,073 to the school district from the years 2003 and 2005. The district has a current-year budget of $16 million.

runyan@vindy.com