Youngstown schools face bleak futures if levy fails

The Youngstown City School District cannot cut its way back to solvency.

So says Roger Nehls, head of the state fiscal oversight commission, which was created in 2006 when the district was placed in fiscal emergency.

Voters can choose now to support the school system, or pay later to support the criminal justice system.

That’s the bleak assessment of Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams, who has to deal daily with the seemingly intractable issue of crime.

The community needs to support every child in the schools, with a goal of getting 100 percent of them into college or some form of higher education.

Those words of wisdom are from Dr. David Sweet, president of Youngstown State University, who has made it his vocation to increase the percentage of residents in this region with college degrees.

And yet, approval of the 9.5-mill levy for the Youngstown city schools in the Nov. 6 election is not a sure thing. Why? Because too many district residents continue to believe — wrongly, from our vantage point — that the district is rolling in money and, therefore, should curb its spending ways.

But as we have pointed out in the past, Nehls, head of the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission, doesn’t have an ulterior motive for saying what he has over the past several months. His objective analysis of the financial condition of the school system should not be dismissed off-hand. Nehls has nothing to gain with the passage of the levy — other than to have the chance of overseeing the district’s emergence from fiscal emergency.

Spending reductions

Indeed, he would not have been so willing to endorse the 9.5-mill levy had he not been involved in the effort by the school board and the administration, under Superintendent Wendy Webb, to reduce spending before they made a decision on a tax increase.

Over the past two years, $17 million in cuts have been implemented and 250 jobs have been eliminated. This year, the number of teachers was reduced from 740 to 650, and 20 administrative positions were erased.

Yet, the district faces a $15 million budget deficit in the 2006-07 general fund. With the loss of students, largely to charter schools, and the increased demand on the system for special programs, additional revenue is needed.

It is noteworthy that the 9.5 mills, which would be in effect for five years, will generate a mere $4 million a year. That means additional cuts would have to be made.

Almost a year to the date, we endorsed the 9.5-mill levy that was on the Nov. 7, 2006, ballot, saying then, and we do now, that the people who are charged with educating Youngstown’s students are sincere, thoughtful, realistic and working hard to improve the impoverished school district.

However, voters weren’t convinced that the school board and the administration had done all they could to reduce expenses. The levy failed, the state declared the district to be in fiscal emergency and an oversight commission has been keeping a close watch over the operation of the system.

There is a reality that all fair-minded voters must acknowledge as they go to the polls: When a district loses thousands of children to charter schools, there is no easy way to make up the $26 million that is taken out of the budget. The money follows the child.

Passage of the 9.5-mill levy on Nov. 6 is an absolute necessity.