Warren schools stay afloat

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Angela Lewis, treasurer of Warren city schools, has a personal goal of keeping the school district afloat on its existing income through June of 2014 or 2015.

That will mean the district will have functioned on the same level of public support — without a request for an additional levy — for 20 years.

Lewis called that an “amazing accomplishment for any district,” when she addressed the school district’s financial advisory committee Monday.

Lewis said the district will lose $4.8 million combined in the current school-year budget and next. It includes the loss of $747,000 in state aid this year and $902,000 next year, and $1.2 million this year in tangible personal-property tax money and $1.95 million next year.

Lewis says the $4.8 million in lost revenue is just about the amount of money the school district will have to take from its surplus, and that means the surplus will nearly reach a negative balance by June 2014.

Under Gov. John Kasich’s most recent two-year budget, the state is phasing out tangible personal-property tax revenue for schools and other government entities several years sooner than previously planned.

The school district did go to the voters for approval of a 6.5-mill bond issue in November 2003 to build five new schools and demolish 19 old ones. That bond issue generated $40.7 million, the local share of the $153 million state project.

In writing the school district’s most recent five-year budget projection, Lewis analyzed many factors that will affect finances, such as enrollment, which was decreasing by 100 students per year the past few years. This year it is expected to drop by 54 students.

One reason for the improvement is that two community schools closed this year, Lewis said, causing some students to return to the district.

Warren’s property values actually increased by about 10 percent in the most recent countywide property revaluation done by the county auditor’s office, despite the residential portion of Warren’s property values dropping by an average of 15 percent.

The reason for the overall increase is that Trumbull Memorial Hospital changed from a nonprofit hospital to for-profit, increasing the value of commercial property in Warren by $7 million to $8 million, Trumbull County Auditor Adrian Biviano told the group.

When asked how long the current residential real-estate bust across the country will last, Biviano repeated the information he received at a county auditor’s conference he attended in Columbus recently: “You’d like to see it turn around in five years, but it could be 10 years.”