Recordpub.com - Cuts likely if levy fails in Streetsboro

By Miles Jung-Kilbreath

Gateway News

STREETSBORO — Superintendent Linda T. Keller laid out the cuts the district would have to make if voters don’t pass a 9.5-mill levy on Nov. 3, including going to state minimum standards for busing and eliminating 47 non-teaching positions.

“We only have one shot at this. We are on the cusp of such greatness and this would change our entire world,” Keller said.

She said cuts would be needed to make up a “totally unexpected” $900,000 deficit in this year’s school budget that was discovered in July. She said the district already has plans for $461,000 in cuts that would begin in January if the levy fails.

Treasurer Neil Barnes said the district also is looking at a rough early projection of an additional $1.5 million deficit in the 2010-11 school year. He said the additional loss would mostly come from teacher pay increases and benefits, which could lead to the elimination of about 20 teaching positions to make up the difference if a levy isn’t passed.

Barnes said the district only has the November election to pass the levy for the funds to be available at the end of the school year and the start of the 2010-11 school year. If a levy is approved in 2010, funds can only start being collected on Jan. 1, 2011.

“I think it could take us two years to recover from (a levy loss),” board member Andy Lesak said.

If the district goes to state minimum busing, students who live within two miles of their school will not be provided busing.

“That means the cuts would come in the middle of winter,” Lesak said.

Keller said the district has been working to reduce costs and was able to cut $875,000 from the budget during the summer, but was still left with a $900,000 deficit. Barnes said budgets at each school were cut to “absolute needs” only and one-time funds the district received from the federal stimulus program will be used for the general budget.

“Other districts have been able to use that money for items on their wish list. For us, it’s gone,” Keller said.

Staff reductions already have taken place. Four tutors and an aid for disadvantaged students were fired and contracts were ended for human resources and a school photographer, Keller said. If the levy does not pass, Keller said 10 bus drivers, 14 tutors, 17 lunch and playground monitors, four library aids and six technology aids would be let go in January.

Other options the district is considering include raising participation fees for athletics and all extracurricular activities and not opening the school for community groups after school hours.

Board member Kevin Grimm said the loss of teaching staff would result in an education “assembly line,” where teachers would have too many students in a classroom to help individual students who are struggling.

“We can’t let that happen,” he said.

School board president Denise Baba said education is more than teaching students how to “go get a job,” it’s about expanding their minds.

“I hope my daughter learns more, like being able to judge right and wrong and what’s appropriate and not appropriate,” she said.

The Gateway News is a sister publication of the Record-Courier.

7.	Posted by averagejoe5 September 14, 2009
	theman35 - Streetsboro schools grossly waste funds as do all school districts. Instead of giving the staff raises they need to work within their budget and still provide the services needed like busing. Crestwood did the right thing and kept busing, knowing that it would make for better community relations. They always imposes pain on the very people that pay their salaries to get more money. (They arrest the mafia for such practices.) This superintendent had an opportunity to get the people on herside from the start and guess what...she is failing and is falling back on the same old rough house tactics of her predessor. Streetsboro needs to recall the board and the superintendent and find people willing to do what's best for the community not just for the teachers and the support staffs pocket books. I know just the guy to start this and his last name is Flemming.