Strickland’s plan would give some Valley schools a boost

By Harold Gwin

The loss for the Youngstown district in 2011 would be less than anticipated.

AUSTINTOWN — Some school districts will benefit substantially under Gov. Ted Strickland’s biennial budget plan, but others, such as Youngstown, will actually lose money.

Strickland visited Lloyd Elementary School on Monday to take a quick tour of first- and second-grade classes and then address his plans to boost elementary and secondary education aid by $925 million.

The governor said no districts will lose money in fiscal year 2010, but that some will see a reduction in funds in fiscal 2011.

Youngstown fits the latter category, according to a report issued Monday by the Ohio Office of Budget and Management.

State aid (minus money diverted to charter schools and open-enrollment schools) for Youngstown will remain constant at $53,739,029 in fiscal 2010 but drop by $1,074,781 in fiscal 2011, according to the OBM report.

That’s actually better than what Youngstown had been anticipating, said Anthony Catale, school board president.

The latest projections from the district’s treasurer showed that, based on warnings of state budget woes, Youngstown could have faced a cut of $800 per child in subsidy payments in 2010. That would amount to more than $5 million, Johnson said.

Catale said he hadn’t seen the latest OBM numbers but the report “is actually good news for the school district compared to what we thought we might lose.”

OBM didn’t explain why some districts will lose money in the second year, but the report did note that Youngstown has experienced a pupil population drop of nearly 39 percent between fiscal 1998 and fiscal 2008. Current enrollment is about 7,250.

By contrast, the governor’s proposed budget carries nothing but good news for the Austintown schools, said Superintendent Douglas Heuer.

Austintown, which had a 0.5 percent pupil decline between 1998 and 2008, will receive a 15 percent funding increase (after deductions for charter and open-enrollment pupil losses) in fiscal 2010 and an additional 5 percent in fiscal 2011, said Heuer.

That amounts to a $2,613,720 increase to a total of $20,038,517 in 2010 and an additional $1,346,176 to a total of $21,384,692 in 2011, according to the OBM report.

Catale said losing state aid will place a greater emphasis on the Youngstown district’s own plans to reduce spending to help bring it out of fiscal deficit by fiscal 2012.

The district has cut about $26 million in spending over the last two years as it seeks to emerge from state-mandated fiscal emergency. Catale said Youngstown is looking at as much as $4 million more in fiscal 2010, Catale said.

Strickland said his model education plan calls for, among other things, mandatory all-day kindergarten, a lengthening of the school day and school year, community service programs and a general increase in state financial support that will boost Ohio’s contribution to 59 percent of the cost of elementary and secondary education. The state is now at the 52 percent mark, he said.

The governor’s programs carry increased costs that will be a problem for Youngstown, Catale said, questioning how the district can pick up any of those increases if the state is reducing its aid to the district.

Strickland said his model for elementary and secondary schools will meet the needs for high quality education and the state. Money from the proposed federal stimulus package, cuts in other areas of the state budget and increases in various state fees will help to pay for the overall increase in education funding, he said.

Strickland had asked for $5 billion from the stimulus package but said he expects to get something more than that.

The governor said his funding plan should resolve the Ohio Supreme Court’s issue with the state funding of elementary and secondary education.

The high court has ruled Ohio’s current funding method unconstitutional on three occasions.

The court said it was looking for systematic changes and that is what his plan will produce, the governor said.

gwin@vindy.com