School treasurer discusses finances and levy with Betterment

By Matt Echelberry

Inquirer Reporter

The guest speaker for the Galion Bet­ter­ment Commission’s March 4 meet­ing was Terri Day, trea­surer of Galion City Schools. She offered mem­bers a bet­ter under­stand­ing school finance and why the dis­trict is putting another tax levy on the May bal­lot. Last Novem­ber, the bal­lot was for 8 mills, and this time around, the dis­trict is ask­ing for 9.4 mills (8 mills for gen­eral oper­at­ing and 1.4 mills for per­ma­nent improvements).

The pri­mary rea­sons for the increase of mill­age is decreased state fund­ing and the new prop­erty val­u­a­tions that were released last fall. The val­u­a­tions for the dis­trict went down, which sig­nif­i­cantly reduced over­all revenue.

Day first went over the district’s rev­enue and expen­di­tures from July 2012 through Decem­ber 2012. Accord­ing to her, 70 per­cent of the rev­enue comes for the state, 25 per­cent from the local share and the remain­ing 5 per­cent con­sists of dona­tions and mis­cel­la­neous income.

In expen­di­tures, a total of $8 mil­lion was spent in the 6 month time frame: 51 per­cent went to per­son­nel, 22 per­cent to ben­e­fits and retire­ment, 19 per­cent to pur­chased ser­vices, 3 per­cent to mate­ri­als, sup­plies and cap­i­tal expen­di­tures and 5 per­cent in mis­cel­la­neous costs.

Day said they over­spent $415,000 so far this fis­cal year, and she esti­mated $335,000 in over­spend­ing. While admin­is­tra­tion has been try­ing to stop deficit spend­ing by mak­ing bud­get cuts, cuts alone are not enough. In a chart show­ing gen­eral oper­at­ing finances since 2009, the year end bal­ance has decreased each year. The chart showed deficit spend­ing of $148,000 in 2011 and $472,000 in 2012.

“At the end of this year we’ve esti­mated we will only carry $545,000, which means that next year if we deficit spend as much as we did this year, we’ll be in the neg­a­tive,” Day concluded.

In terms of state fund­ing, the dis­trict will receive about $10 mil­lion, accord­ing to the new bud­get, but Day empha­sized that they do not know for sure how much the dis­trict will receive. While it would be a slight increase com­pared to pre­vi­ous years, Day main­tained that it would not be enough rev­enue to close the gap.

Super­in­ten­dent Kathy Jen­ney added that Galion City Schools is too depen­dent on state fund­ing, as the Gov­er­nor has indi­cated that the state’s share should only be 50 per­cent. Jen­ney said the dis­trict must increase the local share in order to sta­bi­lize the budget.

If the tax levy repeal in 2007 did not pass, Jen­ney said with the reduc­tions that have been made the dis­trict would have stayed within its bud­get. She went on to say that con­ces­sions have been made, but they can­not con­tinue to make cuts at employee expense. The dis­trict needs to remain com­pet­i­tive salary wise, as 12 peo­ple retire this year, and they antic­i­pate about the same for next year.

When asked what else might be cut, Jen­ney said she is still work­ing with the Board of Edu­ca­tion on details. “We have cut and nego­ti­ated every year that I have been super­in­ten­dent, since 2007. Many of the cuts we made were pru­dent and we needed to make them. Last year, I felt that we started to cross that line where we went too far.”

For exam­ple, she said cut­ting staff in art, music and phys­i­cal edu­ca­tion was not prac­ti­cal for edu­ca­tion. The schools have also been using sty­ro­foam plates in the cafe­te­ria because of reduc­tions in food ser­vice staff.

Jen­ney explained that admin­is­tra­tion would study the long-term effects of cut­ting things like pay to par­tic­i­pate and trans­porta­tion. How­ever, she said when exten­sive cuts were made in 2005 and 2006, the dis­trict lost more stu­dents and rev­enue than was gained by mak­ing the reductions.

Day said that, with the forth­com­ing change of local gov­ern­ment, there could be a new out­look for the city. “If we want to draw more peo­ple and busi­nesses into the com­mu­nity, one of the first things they will look at is the local schools,” Day com­mented. She added that the new build­ings are a huge draw and the pro­gram­ming offered is cut­ting edge.

One exam­ple includes the new One-to-One Pro­gram, in which all stu­dents have access to a lap­top or elec­tronic tablet, which Jen­ney said is allow­ing them to stretch the bud­get, because courses can still be offered with­out a staff member.

Also, dig­i­tal course­work has sta­bi­lized enroll­ment. This is impor­tant because Day reported that about 100 stu­dents do open enroll­ment or home school­ing and about $1 mil­lion is lost each year to open enroll­ment alone.

“Edu­ca­tion is a busi­ness now and we need to mar­ket our­selves,” Day com­mented. Jen­ney agreed, say­ing they are will­ing to speak to other local groups and orga­ni­za­tions as well about the levy.

After the pre­sen­ta­tion, Bet­ter­ment mem­bers gave updates. The Cham­ber of Commerce’s annual Fore­cast Break­fast is March 13 at the Free Methodist Chris­t­ian Life Cen­ter. Please RSVP by call­ing the Cham­ber at 419–468-7737. Also, Craig Smith RV Cen­ter has fin­ished its remodel and a new spe­cialty shop is mov­ing into the Uptowne Dis­trict soon.

The City of Galion still has plenty of road salt for this sea­son and improve­ments con­tinue to be made to the Water Treat­ment Plant. The Galion YMCA is wrap­ping up the Cap­i­tal Cam­paign, a fundraiser to make facil­ity improve­ments and expan­sion. Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Terry Grib­ble said they are cur­rently at $610,500 in promised dona­tions and is con­fi­dent they will hit the $750,000 goal.

Galion Hos­pi­tal Aux­il­iary has many upcom­ing events, includ­ing a book fair on March 15, when the hos­pi­tal gift shop will also offer dis­counts. The group is in the final weeks for rais­ing money for the hos­pi­tal for the year. Aux­il­iary Pres­i­dent Patty Rice-Groth said if $50,000 is hit, the Aux­il­iary will have raised $2 mil­lion in dona­tions to date.

Galion Com­mu­nity The­atre will hold audi­tions soon for “Calamity Jane,” its next show.

The Galion Health Depart­ment is one of ten health depart­ments in Ohio par­tic­i­pat­ing in a pilot to bill pri­vate insur­ance. Plenty of vac­ci­na­tions are still available.

In an update from the Min­is­te­r­ial Asso­ci­a­tion, Lenten ser­vices are ongo­ing. The Gen­er­a­tional Poverty Com­mit­tee is devel­op­ing ideas for pro­grams and Cross­roads Church in Mans­field is launch­ing a satel­lite church in Galion; the first ser­vice is on Easter Sun­day at Galion High School.

Galion Pub­lic Library has many upcom­ing events, includ­ing a Myth­busters activ­ity for kids on March 7, 1–4 p.m. and the annual chess tour­na­ment on March 23. The Kiwa­nis Club is begin­ning its annual rose sale.

Galion City Schools has five swim­mers who qual­i­fied for the state com­pe­ti­tion and two wrestlers com­peted in the state finals over the week­end. On April 17 Pio­neer stu­dents, as well as all of the Galion juniors and seniors, are doing a com­mu­nity ser­vice day. Call or email Kathy Jen­nery for sug­ges­tions of projects that stu­dents could do.

Golden Age Cen­ter has its Spring Bazar on March, from 9 a.m. — 3 p.m., and Home­care Mat­ters’ Celebrity Waiter Din­ner is April 23, at William Craw­ford Inter­me­di­ate School.

United Way has its annual meet­ing on March 21 at Bucyrus Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal. Covert Man­u­fac­tur­ing, United Bank and Cross­roads Designs have been named as the organization’s pace­set­ter busi­nesses for the year.

Bet­ter­ment Commission’s next meet­ing is April 1 at 12 p.m., in the cafe­te­ria board room of Galion Com­mu­nity Hospital.

Posted by Matt Echelberry on Mar 5 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.