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Ledgemont Answers State With More Cuts
Ledgemont Answers State With More Cuts
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Ledgemont Schools might be familiar with the edge of a blade, but that doesn’t make its next round of cutting any easier.
Board of education members held a public forum Monday night to glean feedback from residents on a list of more than $600,000 in reductions they contrived to appease the state’s fiscal oversight commission.
The commission was assigned to the district in the fall of 2010 when it slipped into fiscal emergency status.
Among the list of reduction options for the 2012/2013 academic year were staff cuts, eliminating high school busing, moving seventh and eighth grades from the elementary school building to the high school building, and upping extracurricular activity fees.
“Mind you, we’ve been making reductions in this district for a long time. We run a very tight ship here,” said Superintendent Ron Donatone, who announced his resignation last year, effective March 2012.
Donatone’s retirement will save the district $40,000 because the Geauga County Educational Service Center is providing an interim superintendent to run the district through July 31. The board will need to have a new superintendent in place beginning Aug. 1.
“It’s going to be a tough decision for the board,” Donatone told a packed cafeteria at Ledgemont Elementary School.
While Ledgemont finally passed an earned income tax levy in May of 2010 after three prior levy attempts failed, there was a two-year gap between when the district’s last income tax levy expired at the end of 2008 and the collection of the current levy in 2011, which resulted in a $2 million loss, Donatone said.
“We lost $1 million per year and that is a significant amount of money for a district that has a total budget of about $5.5 million dollars,” he said. “So in the fall of 2010, we had to tell the State of Ohio we were running out of money and needed an advancement. They lent us $2.17 million dollars. It’s a no interest advance or loan. And in doing so, they set up a fiscal oversight commission ... that oversees all expenditures in the district.”
The commission asked for two financial recovery plans — one for the 2011/2012 school year and the other for 2012/2013 — however, during the planning of the second year, the state cut funding to Ledgemont Schools by 3 and a half percent, causing the district to have to go back to the drawing board, Donatone explained.
Treasurer Kelly Moore said state loans made after July 1, 2011, could be repaid over a 10-year period, but the district’s $2.17 million loan is subject to former law and must be repaid in two installments over a two-year period.
The district’s first restructuring to the fiscal oversight commission was based on payment of the first installment over a longer period of time, Board President Rick Loveland said.
“That’s why our potential list of cuts six months ago are much different than they are now, because they did not allow us to do that over a longer period of time,” he added.
Based on current projections, the school district would have to make $600,000 in reductions in order to balance its budget at the end of fiscal year 2012 as well as have enough left over to pay down the loan and satisfy the state, Moore explained to residents.
“So we’re looking at cutting the budget by more than 10 percent,” Donatone said. “In order to do that, you have to cut staff and you have to cut some programs, and you have to do some things that are very uncomfortable because there isn’t anything easy that’s left to do.”
He added, “(The board is) seeking input from the community, from parents, from staff, but at the end of the day, they have a job to do and that is to make these reductions and balance this budget and pay back the money that the state has advanced to the district.”
The hot button issues Monday night were busing, staff cuts and the relocation of seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school building, causing a few heated exchanges between parents, board members and the administration.
“And you don’t think it’s going to hurt the school district when parents decide to take their children and put them in a school that’s open enrollment and you’re going to lose all that money that comes from the state?” one parent asked Donatone. “I’m sure there are a few parents that are going to consider moving their children.”
Donatone conceded there is a financial impact when a student leaves the district.
“(It loses) $5,700 per student” he said. “And I think that looking down through this list, there are many, many items on there that could drive a parent into making that kind of decision. Our hope is that they won’t.”
He added most of the surrounding districts are making similar cuts.
“The grass isn’t necessarily greener anywhere you go right now. It’s tough,” he said.
In response to a question about what actions would be taken to separate seventh- and eighth-graders from high school students, Donatone said, “We’re very aware of your concerns and have the same concerns.”
Some of the details discussed include:
• Reserve a separate bank of rooms in the building for all of their core courses.
• Assign lockers in that same area.
• Have a separate lunch period.
• Start and end the school day at a different time from when the high school starts and ends.
Donatone added the area being considered has a separate bathroom.
One parent suggested switching out the two schools entirely, giving them more options for separating the middle school and high school students because the elementary school building is larger than the high school.
However, Donatone said the elementary school building was designed for elementary-age children in terms of fixtures, classroom size and population differences.
“I don’t know that I see a savings there,” he added.
In turn, parents questioned the savings of eliminating high school busing, which would knock off $100,000 alone, according to the list.
“How would you address, then, the savings in busing if you still by state law have to bus seventh- and eighth-graders to the high school location, but you’ll not be picking up ninth through twelfth graders?” one parent asked.
Donatone said the district currently has two bus runs, one that picks up the high school and middle school students, and a second run that picks up elementary school students.
The cut would eliminate one bus run, realizing a savings, but would also change the bell schedule and might have a slight impact on the elementary school start time, Donatone said, reminding parents all the reduction options had to be made within the confines of the Ohio Revised Code.
State law requires all students, kindergarten through eighth grade, be bused.
“Remember, we have to make a $600,000 reduction in expenditures. If it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t be here tonight and we wouldn’t be talking about any of these items on here because they’re all difficult,” Donatone said. “I mean, if we had our druthers, we wouldn’t have to do any of them, but we’re in debt and we have to show that we can get out of debt, and we have a commission that has all the authority of the law telling us, ‘you need to do this.’”
Raising participation fees for sports to a flat rate of $300 per student, per sport, was also discussed at the forum, highlighted by screeching tennis shoes as students played basketball in the nearby gym.
“It costs the district $132,000 to run football, volleyball, basketball, track, softball, baseball, cheerleading and marching band for the fiscal year,” Moore said, adding the current pay-to-participate fee is $75 — $40 of which goes directly into the general fund to offset transportation costs and/or overtime for the bus drivers.
The remaining $35 is used to pay for things like event security, supplies, field maintenance, officials and tournament fees, she said.
However, the district is still picking up roughly $85,000 in sports fees that are not covered by anything and are coming out of the general fund budget every year for those extracurricular activities, Moore said.
She added even if the participation fees were raised to $300 per person, per sport, the district is still short $25,000 to operate extracurricular activities.
“Could you explain the role of the board? What is the role?” one parent asked Loveland shortly after. “I mean, you kind of come in and arbitrarily make cuts, but then you kind of don’t know where the needs are.”
The role of the board is to serve the community and hire a treasurer and superintendent, Loveland responded.
“And that’s why we rely on them so much for advice,” he said, admitting board members are not experts in the education field, although they try to be involved.
He added they receive $35 per meeting.
“It’s lucky to be $400 per year,” he said, noting Monday’s meeting was not a paid meeting.
“Not that that even matters. I put much more than that back into the school district in a month,” he said, spurring applause from residents.
District officials have also discussed a four-day school week; renting out the seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms if those grades relocated; cutting programs such as art in the elementary school and home economics in the high school; and offering foreign languages as online courses.
Other options are reducing two classroom teachers in grades kindergarten through sixth, cutting one physical education position, one special education position and aide at the elementary level, and the middle school athletic director.
The five-member oversight commission, which gave the district 60 days from Nov. 9 to produce a “revised reduction plan,” approved the rough draft list 4-1 on Friday.
“We tried to give them enough to satisfy them, but leave a little wiggle room for us to make some final decisions,” Donatone said, reiterating community input is vital and reminding residents to write their suggestions and feedback on the cards they were given.
“So the board of education, it will be their responsibility to finalize this list of expenditure reductions, most of which will be done by spring,” he added.
Board member Marsha Carpenter thanked everyone for coming and offering input, and Loveland said if the board decides to have another public forum before a final decision is made, it would be publicized and likely held within the next month.
