Niles schools request removal from fiscal watch

By Jordan Cohen | July 17, 2015 at 12:05a.m.

NILES

After more than 12 years under the fiscal-watch designation, the city’s 2,500-student school district is finally about to emerge from state scrutiny, its deficits eliminated.

“We have been very conservative and good stewards of finances,” said Linda Molinaro, district treasurer.

The board of education approved a resolution Thursday requesting the state auditor “to determine if all requirements for release from ‘fiscal watch’ have been met.”

Board members said they have no doubt the auditor will agree to end the designation, which was imposed in 2003.

The turnaround is a far cry from the district’s bleakest financial picture in 2012, when five-year deficits were projected at nearly $3 million and the schools were on the verge of being declared in fiscal emergency.

Fiscal watch, according to the state auditor’s office, is when a school district’s failing finances threatens its solvency. Fiscal emergency is when a state-appointed commission develops a financial plan to alleviate a school district’s financial crisis.

Board members said the financial environment changed with the appointment in 2012 of Frank Danso as superintendent who worked closely with Molinaro to eliminate the red ink.

“Now we project no deficits five years out,” Molinaro said.

The meeting marked the last one for Danso, who is retiring Aug. 1. The superintendent, who was hired after the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Mark Robinson, said he began by scrutinizing the cost of practically every item.

“We studied before we spent,” Danso said. He deferred credit to “the board and the treasurer [who] made this easy.”

Although the financial outlook is positive, Richard Limongi, board vice president, warned that a veto by Gov. John Kasich of reimbursements from personal-property and public-utility taxes could cost the district $180,000.

Molinaro said she does not expect that to interfere with the district’s emergence from fiscal watch, however.

Danso, who had retired as school superintendent at Southington before being hired at Niles, said he is equally proud of “what we’ve been able to achieve for the students” as well as the financial turnaround.

“I’ll take those things and cherish them,” he said.

His successor is Ann Marie Thigpen, former Howland schools administrator, whom the board hired in May.