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Deficit for 2012 pegged at $1.9M
Liberty
The township school district is $1.9 million in the hole for fiscal year 2012, state auditors announced Monday at the board of education meeting.
The figure, presented to the board by state auditors Nita Hendryx and Tisha Turner, is considerably less than the $2.5 million deficit projected in March.
Part of the lower-than-expected deficit stems from the district’s separation with its conversion schools LEAD and LEARN in September. The district gained back $991,000 in per-pupil foundation money lost to those schools in 2011. That income was offset by wages and benefits that had to be paid to the teachers returning to the district from those schools.
Another factor was the use of money that would have otherwise gone to the reserve health fund to pay for bills held over from fiscal years 2010 and 2011.
Treasurer James Wilson said $800,000 was to be allocated to the fund over those two fiscal years.
“Given the financial circumstances, it was paid out for other bills,” Wilson said.
The $1.9 million also represents the maximum the district can borrow from the state to pay its bills through the end of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.
The amount the district borrows interest-free from the state must be approved by the state controlling board, Hendryx said. The district then has two years to pay back that amount.
Hendryx said the certified deficit will go before the fiscal commission — the board charged with guiding the district out of fiscal emergency — at its 11 a.m. Wednesday meeting.
The audit is not yet complete, Hendryx said. She said state auditors are still going over past records to see where money was spent in years 2009 and 2010.
“In the scope of their audit if they find money that was misspent, then they will issue a finding for recovery to have that money taken back [into the district],” Turner said.
Board members and the district first became aware that their financial records were in disarray in February after a letter from the state auditor’s office called its financial records “unauditable.”
A subsequent letter dated March 31 from the Ohio Department of Education to board President Diana Devito said former treasurer Tracey Obermiyer was not reconciling her financial reports with the district’s bank statements. Obermiyer resigned in April.