The committee will be asked to look at finances and reports and make recommendations.

By Harold Gwin | September 11, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school board has completed the appointment of an independent financial advisory committee created to look at district spending.

The voluntary committee, made up of three citizens and three school board members, is expected to have its first meeting before the end of the month.

The board voted to create the committee two years ago but never got around to naming the three community members until now.

The final appointment, Scott Roush of Canfield, a CPA and partner with the accounting firm of Hill, Barth & King LLC, was made this week.

Roush will join Greg Slemons, a CPA, investment banker and former school treasurer in Warren, Hubbard and Orange City; and Lena Hopkins, a retired city schoolteacher and assistant principal; as the community representatives.

Board members Michael Murphy, Jacqueline Taylor and Anthony Catale, chairmen of the business, finance and personnel committees, respectively, complete the body.

The board created the panel in light of the district’s failing finances that led to a $15 million general fund budget deficit in fiscal year 2006. The board sought a local, but outside, group to look at finances.

The state placed the district under fiscal emergency in November 2006, which resulted in the appointment of a fiscal oversight commission to control spending.

Shelley Murray, board president, said the financial advisory committee will be asked to review district finances and reports and make recommendations.

It will provide some accountability of the board’s efforts to reduce spending to deal with the deficit — which could result in support for the bid for a 9.5-mill, four-year tax levy voters will be asked to approve on the November ballot, Murray said.

Catale said the rules for the new committee require the chairman be one of the three community members.

Those three will get together to decide who will chair the committee and then call for a meeting of the full group, he said, adding the board wants that first session to be this month.

Roush, who grew up in the Salem area, said he has a number of clients who receive government funding and audits one other school district, giving him familiarity with school finances.

The committee should be a resource for the district, he said, adding it is a bit too soon to determine what it might find.

Youngstown has had to borrow $25 million from the state to cover its budget deficits over the last two years and will have to borrow about $11 million more this year, school officials have said. That latter figure could be reduced if voters approve the levy which is expected to produce about $5.3 million a year in new revenue.

A little more than $7.5 million of the debt has been repaid so far.

gwin@vindy.com