Revised school-funding figures are closer to amounts expected

By Harold Gwin

YOUNGSTOWN — Local school officials said a report published Friday on proposed state funding for schools isn’t realistic.

The report showed local schools will get millions more state dollars in fiscal 2010 and 2011.

“That’s not gonna happen,” said Richard Denamen, superintendent of the Mahoning Valley Educational Service Center.

It gives a false impression of what is coming, he said, suggesting that taxpayers may begin to wonder where that extra money went when, in reality, it never came at all.

Those numbers showed what school districts would be receiving if House Bill 1 is fully funded, Denamen said, adding that there is a second chart in the report that reflects a much more accurate picture of what school funding will be over the next two years, based on what money the state will have available.

The second chart is not nearly so impressive. In fact, it shows that funding for most of the 15 local districts mentioned in Friday’s report will remain flat or actually decrease over the next two years.

Historically, state funding projections have never been fully funded, Denamen said, adding that it would take more money than the state has available to cover the figures reported Friday.

“These are all tentative figures right now,” he said, pointing out that the latest numbers came out of the House of Representatives, but the bill still must go through the Senate, and no one knows what the final numbers will be.

The Youngstown city schools were shown to be receiving an additional $18 million in state assistance in 2011 under the initial report.

“That’s not going to happen,” said William Johnson, district treasurer.

The second chart showing Youngstown getting an additional $1 million next year is more in line with what the district has been told it can actually anticipate, he said.

The numbers in the first report reflect what the state may be able to phase in over the next 10 years, but certainly not in two years, Johnson said.

Youngstown may have received $51.9 million this year, but less than half of that money actually benefited children attending classes in the city school system, he said. Nearly $30 million of the state aid went to Youngstown children enrolled in charter and open-enrollment schools, he said.