Canfield schools expect to spend $3.8M more a year by 2023

November 22, 2018 at 12:05a.m.

By JUSTIN DENNIS

CANFIELD

By 2023, Canfield Schools administrators expect the district to collect $1.2 million more in annual property taxes than in 2016, while spending about the same amount more on purchased services such as open-enrollment costs.

The district board of education during a Tuesday meeting approved the district’s latest five-year forecast, prepared by district Treasurer Patricia Prince.

It projects the district’s total annual revenue will increase about $645,000 from 2018 to 2023 while total annual expenditures will jump about $3.8 million between those years, reducing a $15.3 year-end cash balance to $11.5 million.

The forecast accounts for $100,000 increases in annual property-tax revenues due to new construction expected in the next five years and $75,000 in the next two fiscal years due to the Windsor House Skilled Nursing Facility.

It also plans for negotiated base increases of 2 percent for all union employees this year, as well as the next two years. Though health care premiums are only expected to increase 5 percent in 2020, administrators budgeted a 10 percent increase between 2021 and 2023, to account for inflation.

The forecast also notes purchased services expenditures – which includes open-enrollment costs and tuition for other schools and funds scholarships for special-needs children – will cost about $1.2 million more annually in 2023 than in 2016.

“The combined cost for school choice ... exceeds $1.4 million and has continued to rise significantly each year,” the forecast states. “[The district] will budget 3 percent inflationary increases for fiscal years 2020 to 2023 as we continue to explore options for continuing to offer quality mandated special education services in more efficient ways.”

Schools Superintendent Alex Geordan said the district’s enrollment has been “pretty stable,” compared to other districts.

“We’re seeing a lot more youngsters coming in. We’re having more being retained than elsewhere,” he said.

Geordan cautioned the school district’s budget is more volatile in practice than it appears on a paper projection. He told board members the district was projected in 2013 to be $2.7 million in the hole by this year, but the district maintained a $14.2 million surplus as of Jan. 1.

In other business, Geordan discussed creation of a consortium of regional school districts to purchase or replace athletic playing surfaces such as turf, as more buyers offers more buying power.

Geordan said Canfield administrators have already contacted six districts in Mahoning and Trumbull counties and elsewhere.

He said administrators hope to seek bids on a new surface early next year and begin construction after the May commencement.