Treasurer: Stay conservative

By Ed Runyan

WARREN — City schools Treasurer Angela Lewis says the drastic changes made to Ohio’s state budget bill last weekend by Senate Republicans shows why it makes sense to be conservative when submitting a five-year forecast to the state.

In the House version of the two-year budget, schools were looking at a 3.6 percent increase in state funding, but the Senate version offered up last week provided increases of between a 0.25 percent and a 0.5 percent.

The forecast approved May 27 by the Warren Board of Education assumed an increase of just 0.25 percent, Lewis said at a meeting this week for members of the school district’s financial advisory committee.

“When you’re dealing with public dollars, you don’t want to plan on money that you might not have,” Lewis said.

Not only did Lewis use a fairly low estimate for any increase in state money, she also assumed pay raises for teachers, a substantial increase in health-care costs and a large number of children leaving the district for other schools.

Even though any of those things may not happen, she believes it’s best to forecast based on what could happen, she said.

Lewis explained all of these issues to help the advisory committee understand why her five-year forecast contains a projected deficit of $10 million by the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2011, and a deficit of $28 million the next year.

“The farther you go out, the worse it looks,” Lewis said.

The forecast projects a surplus of $13 million for next school year and a $3 million surplus for the 2010-11 school year.

For instance, the projection for fiscal year 2010, which begins in July, called for a $10.6 million deficit in October 2006, a $2.7 million surplus in October 2007, and a $10.1 million surplus in October 2008, Lewis said.

The state requires a school district to project its bottom line five years out, even though those numbers are a “crap shoot,” she said.

Shari Harrell, a school board member who also is a member of the financial advisory committee, said the school district is actually in pretty good shape, financially, for several years.

“It’s inevitable that eventually there will need to be new money, but right now, it’s too soon for concern,” she said.

Another factor that makes current financial forecasts difficult, Harrell noted, is that the district has several new buildings, with two more opening in 2010, and it’s difficult right now to know how much they will cost to heat and cool.

The district’s new configuration to four K-8 buildings is saving the district money, she said, by having more teachers and students in one building, making it easier to keep class sizes equal without needing as many teachers.

Harrell said for next school year, the district is likely to see a net drop of nine teachers, resulting from 18 retirements, two returning from leave and the hiring of seven new teachers.

runyan@vindy.com