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Niles schools edge toward fiscal emergency
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
The Ohio Department of Education may place the Niles schools under fiscal emergency by the end of this month unless the district can produce a plan to eliminate its projected deficits. Niles schools have been under fiscal watch since 2003.
A letter to Superintendent Mark Robinson from the finance office of ODE warns that “under the current Fiscal Watch guidelines, your district could be placed in Fiscal Emergency for failure to submit an acceptable financial recovery plan.”
“If they aren’t happy with what I give them, they could place us in fiscal emergency by the end of January,” Robinson said.
A declaration of fiscal emergency would mean that a financial-planning and supervision commission would take control of the district’s finances for an indefinite period. Liberty and McDonald schools currently operate under fiscal-emergency status.
Robinson said the projected deficit for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, is $375,000. The district’s five-year plan released last May projects a $4.3 million deficit by the end of fiscal year 2015.
“We’re doing emergency purchases only to help cut our spending,” Robinson said.
A major issue impacting the district’s finances is the still unresolved contract with the Niles Education Association, the union representing 180 teachers, guidance counselors, librarians and school nurses. Robinson said the board of education presented its “last, best and final offer” Dec.1. The superintendent said there have been no negotiations since.
“We rejected their last offer,” said Chad Ries, NEA spokesman. “We don’t believe they have negotiated a fair and equitable contract, and their offer is unrealistic.”
The teachers’ contract expired last August but still is in effect. That agreement requires the board to pay “100 percent of the premium costs for health-care benefits” for all teachers who were hired before October 2008. Those hired afterward must pay a percentage of their premiums.
By contrast, the union representing the district’s 105 nonteaching employees agreed last November to a new contract in which members pay between 10 percent and 15 percent of the cost of medical premiums.
Robinson declined to comment on the board’s last offer to the teachers, but Ries revealed that the package would have required the teachers to pay “at least 10 percent of the medical premiums.”
The superintendent said the board can vote to implement its last offer without teacher approval, but he plans to discuss the issue in executive session after tonight’s board meeting.
The superintendent also would not rule out the possibility of layoffs if the teachers’ current contract remains unchanged.
“There aren’t a lot of options,” Robinson said. “We either have to reduce the cost of the contract or impose a reduction in force.”
Ries said the teachers also plan to attend tonight’s meeting and address the board.