Many meetings boost costs for Youngstown BOE to $15K

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Atkinson

By DENISE DICK

denise_dick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

City school board members have met 20 times this year including regular and special sessions, racking up more than $15,000 in payments to members less than halfway through the year.

Under board policy, each of the seven board member earns $125 per meeting he or she attends.

Richard Atkinson, board president, said board members have discussed the idea of not getting paid for some meetings in light of the district’s financial problems.

“We’d just call it and say it’s a nonpaying meeting,” he said.

In 2011, the state auditor’s office released the district from fiscal emergency status, a label it carried for more than four years. That followed an earlier fiscal emergency designation, which lasted from 1996 to 1999.

That recent bad financial history makes some board members particularly cautious. A recent move by the Youngstown City Schools Academic Distress Commission to raise high school principals’ annual salaries from a range of $79,300 to $93,400 to a range of $95,000 to $105,000 raised board members’ hackles.

The commission — which initiated the raise after Superintendent Connie Hathorn said the district had difficulty attracting quality high school principals for the pay the district offers — said the new range was in line with national standards. The commission was appointed by the state to guide the district out of academic difficulty.

But board members said the district can’t afford higher salaries.

Regular meetings are scheduled twice monthly and special meetings — those for which a specific purpose must be identified — have been called for reasons including the superintendent’s evaluation and discussion about high school principals’ salary, school discipline and other topics.

Atkinson said the board calls a lot of special meetings because the regular meetings don’t provide ample time to address everything members want to talk about.

“Especially when we get stuff late, and it has to be moved right away so we have to call a special meeting” because members want more information, he said.

Last year, the board met 40 times, for a total of more than $29,300 in payments.

Part way through the year, the board began recessing meetings to another day rather than scheduling a different meeting on another day to cut down costs.

In Lorain City Schools, the only other district in which an academic distress commission is in place, school board members have met 10 times so far this year. Those members earn $125 per meeting as well.

Some other districts, though, either offer less pay per meeting or impose a cap on the number of meetings for which board members receive payment.

Boardman’s school board meets once monthly in regular session with work sessions also scheduled. Board members also receive $125 per meeting, but the number of meetings for which members receive payment is capped at 12, 13 if members attend the countywide school board meeting.

Through May, that board had met seven times. In 2013, the panel gathered 16 times.

Warren, the only other relatively large urban school district in the Mahoning Valley, pays its school board members $80 per month, regardless of the number of times members meet.

So far this year, the Warren Board of Education has met 14 times.The school board in Akron has met 13 times so far this year, paying each member $125 per meeting.