Tuesday, January 23, 2018
YOUNGSTOWN
A Youngstown Board of Education member questions if the city school district will need another levy to remain out of the red.
Board member Jackie Adair asked district Treasurer Sherry Tyson during Tuesday’s board meeting if a levy would be necessary to keep the district out of fiscal distress. Tyson had reported the district’s spending — based upon numbers from July 2017 until now — is projected to be about $8 million more than forecast by the fiscal year’s end in June.
Tyson said she won’t know the answer to Adair’s question until June.
“Right now we need to concentrate on how to reduce cost without hurting the children,” she said. “Without kids we don’t have a district. You can’t cut things beneficial to children, but you have to cut things around the children that may be indirectly related to what is necessary to students.”
The district, however, won’t be in the red just yet. It had a carryover from this fiscal year to the next originally predicted at about $20 million.
Due to the increased spending but also figuring in revenue, the carryover amount is now projected to be about $14.5 million.
The extra spending partially comes from nearly $5 million more spent in district salaries than predicted.