Less income forces district to cut budget
By Jeff Gallatin
Bay Village
Published July9, 2008

School officials are keeping their budget tight by trimming costs in equipment and personnel areas.

In approving a revised 2008-09 budget of $27,917,381, Superintendent Clint Keener said the district was like many others around the state and had to revise its figures because it wasn’t going to get as much money coming in as originally projected. To compensate, the district has cut and delayed purchases in equipment and left open or cut to part time some open positions in the budget. Bay officials cut $393,157 from the initial proposed budget to arrive at the new, lower figure.

Keener cited familiar reasons in noting why the district has less funding than expected for the upcoming year.

“We’ve gotten hurt like a lot of districts and people by the foreclosures and problems in the housing industry,” he said. “The money is just not coming to districts because of the foreclosures and other resulting financial problems in the housing industry. It’s something that we’re not only facing in our area and Ohio overall, but the entire nation.”

Keener said many experts are saying the funds will start going up again when the foreclosure and other problems start to ease up. He added that doesn’t help the districts now or in planning future budgets.

“We don’t know when that will happen,” he said. “It’s not something you can plan on specifically right now because we can’t predict when more positive changes will happen in that area.”

In addition, Keener said the district is down $108,000 in federal funds distributed by state education officials.

“What’s happened there is that the federal government has been giving the funds to the state for several years, and the state in turn has distributed it to the local districts after keeping it in the bank for a number of months,” he said. “The federal government has told the state it can’t keep the money as long. It has to distribute the funds sooner, which means there wasn’t as much money to be given out.”

Keener said the district actually fared better than initially expected than when it found out it would be receiving less of the federal money.

“Based on what we were told earlier, we had thought it would be $150,000, so we’re somewhat better off than we initially expected,” he said.

To deal with the losses, Keener said the district tried to reduce costs across the board, but got the biggest savings in equipment.

“We won’t be getting some equipment as quickly as planned,” he said. “We’re not getting some new TV equipment as quickly as planned. We’re not getting a new maintenance truck, and we’re cutting down in other areas as well.”

In addition, Keener said personnel cost shifts are also aiding the effort. He said they moved one secretarial position from the high school to the middle school. Some open maintenance positions are going from full to part time.

“Nobody’s lost their job because of this,” he said. “Some maintenance is ultimately going to go a little longer because of the changes. But we’ll get things done.”

Keener said the district was able to keep funds available for more pressing repair needs.

“We’ll still be doing things like repairing roofs, working on parking lots and other work that needs to be done more quickly,” he said.

He said the changes won’t affect future district operating levy plans, meaning one likely won’t appear on the ballot until they need to get additional funds for 2010.