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Niles school board submits plan with levy, job cuts
By Jordan Cohen
NILES
Faced with a state mandate to eliminate a projected $1.3 million deficit in fiscal year 2019, Niles schools have submitted a plan containing a levy submission next May and staffing cuts that include four teaching positions.
Last October, the Ohio Department of Education placed the district in fiscal caution, a designation requiring it to develop a five-year, deficit-free forecast. The state education department is to vote on the plan in January, said Superintendent Ann Marie Thigpen.
“If the plan is not acceptable, they [ODE] can place us in fiscal watch or, worst case, fiscal emergency,” Thigpen said.
Niles schools spent 13 years under fiscal watch from 2003 to 2016, but last October, only 16 months after the designation was removed, the state declared the district under fiscal caution when the deficit was projected for 2019.
Thigpen said among the district efforts to eliminate the deficit will be submission of a levy currently estimated at 5.8 mills in May, well below the 9.25-mill issue voters rejected in November. She said the cost to owners of a $100,000 home, for example, will be $210, “$100 less than it would have been if the 9.25 mills had been approved.”
The staffing cuts, in addition to the four teaching positions, include one administrator and two nonteaching positions. Thigpen emphasized that levy and cuts remain tentative depending on ODE approval of the plan.
“Nothing is written in stone,” she said.
Board President Susan Giannetti Longacre said reductions in state funding have played a significant role in the district’s financial dilemma.
“Because of those cuts, we have had to make some hard decisions in the plan,” Longacre said. “We have no choice but to reach out to the voters next May to help us return to fiscal solvency.”
Reduced enrollment also has been a factor in declining school revenue. After the fiscal caution declaration, Thigpen pointed out the district has 150 fewer students than it had the previous school year. Current enrollment numbers are 2,250.