Youngstown schools make $250,000 in additional cuts

The superintendent said the district has tried to address community concerns.

By HAROLD GWIN

VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school district has trimmed an additional $250,000 in spending as it prepares to ask voters to approve a 9.5-mill tax levy to help cover a $15 million budget deficit last year.

In a report to the school board this month, Tony DeNiro, assistant superintendent for school business affairs, said the additional cuts were made in the transportation and maintenance departments.

“We’re constantly working on reductions,” Superintendent Dr. Wendy Webb told the district’s Financial Planning and Supervision Commission last week.

Additional cuts will be going into effect, she said, adding that the plan is to have the budget balanced by 2012, provided that voters approve the five-year emergency levy in November.

An effort to get the same millage passed a year ago failed by a margin of 2,000 votes.

The budget deficit prompted the state to place Youngstown under a fiscal emergency designation, resulting in the appointment of the five-member commission to oversee district spending.

Calls for cuts

Some city residents have suggested the district cut spending, particularly in its central office, before voters are asked to pay more taxes.

“This administration has heard the community. This administration has tried to react to the community,” Webb said.

The district already had trimmed spending by $17 million in the last two budgets, a move that included eliminating 250 jobs.

The reductions announced by DeNiro were additional cuts.

The number of teachers has been reduced from 740 last year to 650 this year (about 12 percent) but there have been cuts across the board as well, Webb said, noting that 20 administrative positions were cut this year, representing 17 percent of that employee group.

That list included 10 central office administrators.

The central office also lost six secretaries and a computer operator this year, Webb said.

Custodial, food service and other employee ranks also took a hit, she added.

More reductions will be made but not from the teaching staff, Webb said, explaining she wants to protect the district’s academic programs from deterioration.

DeNiro’s report showed $133,000 in spending cuts in transportation by cutting two bus routes and eliminating the positions of one mechanic and two drivers.

Maintenance savings were pegged at just more than $125,000 through the elimination of five positions.

Meanwhile, a committee put together to persuade voters to support the levy is meeting twice a week in the board’s central offices on Wood Street to map out strategy.

The group is being chaired by Millicent Counts, executive director of the United Methodist Community Center.

The committee points out that the tax proposal is a temporary levy that will raise about $4 million a year. An additional $4 million in spending reductions will still be required to balance the budget, the committee said.

gwin@vindy.com