By Denise Dick
COLUMBUS
While no Mahoning Valley school districts would get less state money in Gov. John Kasich’s proposed biennium budget, most wouldn’t get any more either.
In Mahoning County, only Austintown, Boardman, Campbell, Sebring, Struthers and Youngstown would see increases in each of the next two years with Boardman logging the largest at 26 percent for next year and 25 percent for fiscal year 2015, according to preliminary estimates released Wednesday by the governor’s office.
It looks good, according to Austintown Superintendent Vince Colaluca, but he’s waiting for more information about any restrictions on the money. Austintown would see a 13 percent increase next year and a 3 percent increase the following year, according to the estimates.
“We’re very optimistic about what we see but hesitant because it still has to go through the legislative level,” he said. “We have to see where it ends up. We’ll be pleased if we see more money from the state, especially because we’ve been cut the last several years.”
In Trumbull County, the largest increase would go to Lordstown with 106 percent next year and 25 percent in fiscal year 2015. Bristol, Brookfield, Girard, Howland, LaBrae, McDonald, Niles and Warren also would realize increases.
“Like most superintendents, I’m relieved that it’s not a negative number,” said Stan Watson, Liberty superintendent. His district’s allotment won’t change for either year.
He questions, however, why some other districts will see increases.
Liberty is a unique district with a property valuation similar to Poland’s but student demographics that are more like Campbell’s, he said.
“That’s based on the pocketed areas of tremendous wealth there are in Liberty Township that drives that up,” Watson said. “It looks as if this is a fairly wealthy school district, but obviously, this isn’t a fairly wealthy school district.”
In Columbiana County, only two districts, Columbiana and Salem, would see the budgets go up 3 percent and 15 percent, respectively, in fiscal year 2014. The following year, Salem and Wellsville would see increases of 3 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
Kasich announced his plans for a revised school-funding plan last week, emphasizing that no district would receive less money.
The governor’s plan also includes grant opportunities for districts using innovation in the classroom to help students learn.
Comments
No mention about how this wil affect the overburdened homw owner.
Chuck - you KNOW how it affects the homeowner - we just keep paying. Kasich has TWO BILLION dollars he's admitting is just surplus (and that's after he siphons off what JobsOhio and his other publicly-funded-private-enterprise cronies grab). That money is being withheld from local municipalities to punish us for not giving in to SB 5's nonsense.
Boardman & Campbell's increases should be conditional upon them converting to open enrolment .
Why is it that all of you ignore the main reason for this problem? The state has either cut funding or refused to support the states public school system. People want teachers pay cut, question why levies are needed but never demand adequate funding from the state. If the state isn't going to fund our schools, cut our taxes so we can support levies. Kasich hates public education, Taft on his way out of office (in disgrace) signed to allow students to leave a school system in academic emergency and go anywhere they wanted. Now my tax dollars go to support charter and parochial schools. Strickland even when the state Supreme Court ruled,he wasn't funding the schools ignored them. This is why our public school system is in trouble.
Why should Boardman have to go open enrollment to accept the money? Lot's of suburban schools with big commercial tax bases (look at Jackson and Perry in Stark County) got increases because the state is reducing the amount of tangible property tax which hurt commercial communities.