Ohio’s budget impasse worries Mathews school board members

Mathews schools could lose $271,000 in 2010.

BY JORDAN COHEN

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

VIENNA — The budget impasse in the Ohio Legislature has school districts bracing for what appear to be huge slashes in funding for education. For the Mathews School District, the reduced funding could exceed a quarter-million dollars in 2010.

“We would be looking at cuts of $271,000 next year and $413,000 the year after that,” said Teri Andrika, district treasurer. “There’s no money available to cover that loss.”

The problem for Mathews and all Ohio school districts stems from a state budget shortfall of $850 million. Gov. Ted Strickland has called for delaying a 4.2 percent reduction in Ohio’s income tax to cover the deficit and has received the support of the Ohio House but not the Senate.

“It looks as though the [budget] cuts will be around 10 percent the first year and 15 percent the second all around Ohio,” said Superintendent Lee Seiple in discussing the projected cuts with the board of education Tuesday. “Each district is going to feel the pain.”

Board members expressed hope that the Legislature and governor can resolve the issue. “I can’t conceive of them letting this happen,” said Robert Thompson, one of two board members whose final meeting was Tuesday.

Thompson and Roy Pratt did not run for re-election. Both had served 12 years on the Mathews board.

The two will be replaced by Tarin Brown and Brian Stidham, who were elected in November, Brown by write-in vote. The two, who sat in on Tuesday’s meeting, will be sworn into office next month.

In another matter, the board unanimously passed a resolution naming the school baseball field after longtime baseball coach Dan Kennedy. More than 30 people, many of them members of the varsity baseball team and their families, crowded the small board meeting room to honor their coach. The resolution says Kennedy’s name will be maintained in the event a new field is built.

Kennedy has been a baseball coach at Mathews since 1972 and has served as varsity baseball coach for the last six years.

“You changed kids’ lives,” Pratt said to Kennedy after the resolution passed. The school’s athletic boosters donated $6,000 for construction of a new baseball scoreboard, which also will carry Kennedy’s name.