July 21, 2005

By Robert Mihalek

The Yellow Springs school district will lose at least $385,000 in state funding beginning in two years because of changes made in the new state budget, district administrators reported during the Board of Education’s meeting on July 14.

Such a cut would amount to nearly 37 percent of the funding the district received from the state and 5 percent of the district’s total revenue during the 2004–05 school year. During that period, the district received $1,047,000 in state funding, and $7,644,000 in total revenue, according to budget information provided by Treasurer Joy Kitzmiller.

The district expects to lose the funding beginning in July 2007, Kitzmiller said, because the state government plans to eliminate “transitional aid guarantee funding.” Kitzmiller estimated that 10 percent of Ohio’s districts receive guaranteed funding.

The Yellow Springs district also receives funding from the state for basic aid, transportation and special education transportation, Kitzmiller said after the meeting.

Kitzmiller said that the district could lose more state funding because Ohio calculates guarantee funding through a formula that includes the evaluation of property taxes in the district. “As our evaluation goes up the amount of funding they’re going to give us goes down,” she said of the state.

Other elements of the state biennial budget, which went into effect July 1, could impact the district, Kitzmiller said. Personal tangible taxes will be phased out over the next four years, she said. The district received $497,000 from these taxes in 2004–05.

The district will receive some revenue from the commercial activity tax, a new tax on businesses, that was enacted in the new state budget, Kitzmiller said. But she said that it’s not clear how this new tax will affect the district.

During last week’s meeting, Kitzmiller said that she and Superintendent Tony Armocida are still analyzing the district’s budget, including the five-year forecast, which projects the district’s budget for the next five years, and how the funding changes could affect the school system. “We need some concrete numbers to fall into place,” she said.

Armocida said that a districtwide effort would be needed to “look at what we have and what is the best way to financially manage the district.”

School board members reacted to the financial report with passionate statements about the community’s support for the district and about state funding for education.

School board member Mary Campbell-Zopf said that local residents need to write their state legislators, Senator Steve Austria and Representative Chris Widener, and tell them “we want some support.” She said that Ohio needs a “sea change” from “giving away” tax dollars to investing in institutions that train people to participate in democracy.

Board member Richard Lapedes said that if the district is going to survive, it will have to be “as good as we can be” managerially.