Ridge school board to seek levy May 4

The board is offering an early-retirement incentive bonus for teachers.

MINERAL RIDGE — The Weathersfield Board of Education has approved placing a 3.9 mill, five-year emergency operating levy on the May 4 primary ballot.

The issue would raise $418,128 a year and was last approved in March 2005 at 4.2 mills. The measure was first passed in 1995 at 5.6 mills, and it was renewed in 2000 at 4.715 mills. The new, 3.9 mill rate was certified by the Trumbull County auditor.

The renewal request will not raise taxes, schools Superintendent Damon Dohar explained.

The board also approved offering a tiered early-retirement incentive to teachers for the 2009-10 school year, from now until the board’s next meeting March 17.

The amount teachers will receive as an incentive will depend upon how many take advantage of the offer, Dohar said. As an example, he said, if six teachers take the incentive, they each will receive $13,500, to be paid in two installments to be made in September over two years. If more teachers retire, the incentive will be slightly higher.

Teachers must be retired by the end of school or by June 30.

The board also approved hiring Luke Bottorff of Cortland as new school pyschologist for Weathersfield and McDonald Local schools from Aug. 1, 2010, to July 31, 2011, at a salary of $54,000.

He will receive $55,800 in 2011-12. The cost of his salary and benefits will be shared by the district and McDonald schools, which will use him two days a week, at a rate of 60 percent and 40 percent, respectively. He will work in Weathersfield three days a week.

Bottorff is attending Kent State University for a master’s in school psychology and will graduate in the spring.

The district has been using a school pyschologist through the Trumbull County Educational Services Center three days a week for a flat fee of $60,000 annually.

The hiring will come as a savings to the district and is subject to McDonald’s approval of the shared hiring.