Fiscal panel to wrap up work on Youngstown schools

By Denise Dick

denise_dick@vindy.com

youngstowN

Members of a commission appointed to oversee city-school-district finances expect an end to their work next month.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one meeting left for the commission, and that’s for release [from fiscal emergency] and to disband,” Roger Nehls, chairman of the financial planning and supervision commission, said at a meeting Thursday.

That meeting is tentatively scheduled for 11 a.m. March 29.

William Johnson, district treasurer, has completed his office’s response to a state auditor’s budget and accounting report, Nehls said, and the district’s five-year forecast shows no deficit.

State auditors will conduct an intensive review of the five-year forecast, examining the district’s financial assumptions and projections and check the district’s response to the accounting report. If it deems the district has met all the requirements and releases it from emergency, the commission will disband.

The school district has been in fiscal emergency since November 2006, with the commission appointed shortly thereafter.

Since then, the district has trimmed spending by $32 million, eliminating about 520 jobs over the last three years.

The district also had been placed in fiscal emergency before and released in 1999.

Johnson said the district has been adhering to the five-year forecast and will continue to do that.

The superintendent agreed.

“We have to keep an eye on the five-year forecast,” Connie Hathorn said.

The forecast is a planning tool that’s required of all school districts two times a year. It’s designed to help school districts look forward, monitor revenue streams and expenses and identify if expenditures are expected to exceed revenue, officials have said.