Youngstown schools heading for $2.2M annual deficit

YOUNGSTOWN — The four-year emergency tax levy passed by city school district voters one year ago to help the district get out of fiscal emergency was supposed to produce $5.3 million in new annual revenue.

It’s not, said William Johnson, district treasurer, estimating the new revenue at $3.1 million.

That’s a shortfall of $2.2 million a year, or nearly $9 million over the life of the 9.5-mill tax levy, he said.

“Our taxes are eroding,” Johnson told the school board’s finance committee Thursday, explaining that a lot of people just aren’t paying their property taxes.

The poor economy is having its effect. People are having a difficult time paying their property taxes, he said.

Property-tax delinquencies in the district now stand at $9 million, Johnson said.

The district’s five-year financial forecast shows Youngstown emerging from deficit spending in fiscal 2011, but, with the tax delinquencies and levy-revenue shortfall, the district could be back in deficit spending by fiscal 2013 as the levy expires, unless the school board asks voters to renew it, he warned.

For the full story, read Thursday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.