Report: TCTC funds to drop $5M

By Jordan Cohen

There will be a fund balance drop of more than $5 million in five-year projections.

CHAMPION — A five-year financial projection for the Trumbull Career and Technical Center shows an anticipated drop in fund balances of more than $5 million by the 2013 fiscal year.

The report, prepared by TCTC Treasurer Gary Ghizzoni, anticipates that the current balance of more than $9.1 million will drop to $4 million by the fifth year.

Ghizzoni said stagnant property values exacerbated by foreclosures pose the biggest problem.

“We’re looking at a real estate market in which nothing is selling above its previous value, so that means no increase in revenue for anyone,” Ghizzoni said.

Trumbull County Auditor Adrian Biviano said the projections reflect his analysis.

“Usually, we appraise at 80 percent below what homes actually sell for, but right now we are at 99 percent, meaning there’s absolutely no increase in sales value for any residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial property,” Biviano said.

“We have orders from the state tax commissioner to stay at zero, and the same is true for Mahoning County,” the auditor added. “It’s the first time we’ve ever seen this.”

That means that homes are not selling above previously appraised values.

Stagnating property values aren’t the only financial problems facing TCTC.

“We don’t know if there will be future cuts from the state, and if there are, those will be a factor,” Ghizzoni said

The treasurer said the district escaped the first round of Ohio funding cuts, but more reductions from the state are expected as the economy contracts and the credit crisis worsens.

“We’ll have to see what happens after that,” Ghizzoni said. “I kept my projections very conservative because we don’t know what the state is going to do.”

He indicated the fund balances could be even worse should the state drastically cut TCTC appropriations.

Ghizzoni’s report also projects deficit spending of operating funds from nearly $187,000 in 2009 to more than $1.9 million in 2013, however he estimates TCTC will stay in the black, and the Trumbull auditor agrees.

“They’ll rely on their fund balances to carry them through,” Biviano said.

The auditor expressed hope that the housing market will improve in two years, but admitted “no one is seeing much improvement in the near future, especially with the credit crunch the way it is.

“[Everyone] will have to stabilize their budgets because you can’t spend what you don’t receive.”

Ghizzoni presented his five-year projections Thursday to the TCTC Board of Education.