District to trim budget $5.1M

By Harold Gwin

The next round of cuts will eliminate 77 jobs in Youngstown schools on top of 450 already cut.

YOUNGSTOWN — The state fiscal oversight commission overseeing city school district finances has approved a revised fiscal recovery plan that will require the district to cut about $5.1 million in spending next year.

“This is the district’s opportunity to get back to solvency,” said Roger Nehls, chairman of the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission.

The cuts outlined in the recovery plan approved Thursday mirror those proposed by the school district’s administration for fiscal 2009-10, he said.

Those reductions, taken in conjunction with a projected $5.2 million in increased annual property tax revenue over the next four years from a 9.5-mill tax levy approved by district voters last year, enabled the district treasurer to develop a five-year forecast that shows no red ink, Nehls said.

Treasurer William Johnson has said that forecast also shows the district revenue should once again exceed spending by fiscal 2011.

The latest version of the recovery plan shows the elimination of 77 jobs.

That’s on top of about 450 positions eliminated and $26 million in spending cuts made by the district over the last two years as it attempts to return to fiscal solvency.

The state placed Youngstown under fiscal emergency in November 2006 after the district announced it was running a general-fund deficit. The oversight commission was appointed to control district spending as part of the recovery process.

“District leadership has really accepted ownership of this process,” Nehls said, noting that the administration has made the hard decisions in terms of where to cut spending while keeping the education of children at the forefront of the district’s mission.

The new version of the recovery plan may be enough to help the district reach fiscal solvency, but the re-evaluations and resizing Youngstown has been experiencing must continue to be an annual event, Nehls said.

Superintendent Wendy Webb said she is happy that the district can begin focusing more on academics again as it works through the latest round of reductions next year.

The district will be smaller, more efficient and more effective, she predicted.

gwin@vindy.com