State plan to hire consultant adds to schools’ money woes

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City school officials aren’t sure where they’ll find the money to pay for a consultant a state Academic Distress Commission wants to hire to help draft an academic-recovery plan for the district.

“I think they understand the financial straits we are in,” said Lock P. Beachum Sr., chairman of the city school board’s finance committee. Youngstown has been in state-designated fiscal emergency since November 2006.

The Academic Distress Commission, established to help Youngstown move out of state-designated academic emergency, voted Monday to have the Ohio Department of Education prepare a request for proposals for a consultant to compile all of Youngstown’s various recovery plans and programs into a single unit that it can use as the basis for writing a new recovery plan. That vote included a stipulation that the city school district pick up the tab, a cost that Anthony Catale, school board president, has said could reach the six-figure mark.

The finance committee hoped to get a look at the commission’s resolution Friday, but Superintendent Wendy Webb said her efforts to secure a copy to present to the board had been unsuccessful.

The recovery plan would cover all grade levels, including high school, and there might be a problem using stimulus money to pay the consultant, she said.

It could depend on the job description and specifically what work the consultant is to do, she said.