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Youngstown schools eyeing $2M in cuts
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
More building closings or program cuts could be on the way for the city schools.
The district needs to whittle about $2 million from next year’s budget to keep the district in the black through the next few years.
One option is changes in employee health insurance, which could trim some or all of the required amount.
“We’ve been negotiating with AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] since December,” said Treasurer James Reinhard.
The teachers’ union contract, however, doesn’t expire until 2016, so a contract reopener would be required to negotiate the health-care provisions of that contract.
If the district can’t achieve the $2 million savings through changes in the health insurance, other possibilities include closing buildings or cutting programs.
“We’re going to go back and look at all programs, and if there are duplicates in certain buildings, we’ll eliminate the programs,” Superintendent Connie Hathorn said.
Reinhard said the district has too much square footage for the number of students enrolled.
“We have a lot of buildings and we just don’t have that many kids,” he said. “The solution is we find a way to bring in more kids — some kind of unique program” or consider moving programs from one building to another to allow buildings to close.
Thirteen buildings are in use. One of them is leased to the Mahoning County Educational Service Center for a program. Most of them are either new or were renovated in the Ohio School Facilities Commission building program between 2000 and 2010.
No particular programs have been identified, Hathorn said. Everything will be considered.
About $600,000 could be trimmed through staff reductions achieved through attrition — a loss of 10 certified and three classified personnel.
About $25,000 could be saved by joining the MCESC’s consortium for substitute teachers and an additional $100,000 by outsourcing transportation management.
Reinhard said the goal is to make whatever cuts the district approves for next school year except for the potential closing of buildings and programs. That change would happen for the 2016-17 school year.
The district’s health insurance is self-funded, and claims increased 37.5 percent last year.
District officials have said the health insurance is expensive for the district, providing lower deductibles and lower out-of-pocket maximum costs for employees.
This year’s general-fund budget is nearly $114 million, which amounts to a 4.8 percent increase compared with last year’s expenditures. That was possible because of an increase in state funding.
The district has identified three goals that align with the Academic Recovery Plan to cover new spending: improve academic performance for middle-school students, improve academic performance for special-education students and prepare students for state tests that use online assessment.