City schools out of the red

By HAROLD GWIN

gwin@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The city school district should finish this fiscal year out of the red, the first time since 2006-07 that it’s taken in more money than it’s spent.

William Johnson, district treasurer, told the school board’s finance committee that Youngstown should end the year June 30 with a $3.95 million fund balance, up from a projected $3.4 million estimate made last October.

The difference is lower payouts for Youngstown students attending charter, open-enrollment and voucher schools, Johnson said, noting that he had anticipated a monthly cost of $3.2 million for those programs, but the actual amount has been running just under $3 million for most of the school year thus far.

That may be an indication that Youngstown’s annual student loss to those programs has slowed, he said.

Youngstown, placed under fiscal emergency by the state in November 2006 after the district’s general fund began running a deficit, has borrowed $28.4 million from the state to balance its last three budgets, the last $3 million coming last June and helping to create the $3.95 million projected fiscal year-end balance this June.

The district won’t have to borrow any more money at the end of this year, Johnson predicted, adding that the final $1.5 million still owed to the state solvency loan fund will be paid off in the next fiscal year.

Youngstown has trimmed some $32 million in spending over the last three years, eliminating about 520 jobs in the process, as it seeks to return to fiscal solvency.

The district is looking at an additional $1.5 million in cuts next year that will include the elimination of 18 more positions.

Further cuts may be required.

The district is getting about $4.8 million a year in new revenue from a 9.5-mill bond levy approved by voters, but that levy expires in fiscal 2012-13.

Once that additional revenue disappears, the district could slip back into deficit spending as early as 2012-13, Johnson said. The alternative is more cuts or a renewal of some form of the tax levy, he said.

Lock P. Beachum Sr., finance committee chairman, said the board isn’t interested in asking voters for another levy. Board members want to know what they have to cut to be financially safe and avoid a levy, he said, asking the treasurer and Superintendent Wendy Webb “to spell that out.”