BOARDMAN — The Boardman Board of Education unanimously has approved Jared Cardillo as interim superintendent to fill in during July for Superintendent Tim Saxton, who is taking mandatory time off for a retire-rehire program.

Cardillo, who serves as director of instruction, will fill the position from July 1 to 31.

Saxton said to be eligible for the retire-rehire program in Ohio, he must take off 60 days before being rehired. He is doing a 30-day absence from the position of superintendent and is surrendering 30 days of his vacation time to make the required 60 days.

Saxton said he will be rehired at a salary of $91,000 for a three-year contract.

“That is a reduction of $30,000,” he said. “The school district will save $140,000 over the next three years.”

He said besides the $30,000 per year in salary, the district also will save on benefit packages that add up to that savings.

“It is a win-win for everyone,” Saxton said.

In other business this week, school district Treasurer Terry Armstrong said it appears the state’s new school funding bill will right a lot of wrongs.

For the first time, the Fair School Funding Plan sets the base amount of money spent on each child on the total per pupil cost of an education, from the transportation budget needed to bring children to school to the computers they’re issued to do homework.

Going forward, that base amount has been increased to $7,200 per child, up from $6,020.

The new system also will do away with a guarantee that districts don’t receive less money from budget cycle to budget cycle, regardless of their actual expenses. It also eliminates what are known as caps, which limit how much additional money districts can receive year over year, regardless of their need.

The new school funding plan also allows direct state payments to charter schools, rather than taking the money from public districts.

Armstrong explained that the Boardman district had received $2,500 per student. That stayed in the district if the student attended Boardman schools. But if the student wanted to attend a charter school or a private school, Boardman lost money. The state had been deducting local funds from districts to pay for non-public school education.

Armstrong previously had emphasized the budget addresses the state’s overreliance on property taxes to fund school districts.

Under the previous funding formula, Boardman, for example, was considered a wealthy district because of property valuations. Incomes of those living in the township, however, sometimes do not match the valuation of their homes.

“We are capped, so we are receiving $3 million less than we should receive,” he said. “Under the formula, we will claw back some, but not all, of that $3 million.”

The old formula really had no basis in what it costs to educate a student while the new Fair School Funding Plan is logically focused on the base cost of what it costs to educate a student in 2021, Armstrong noted.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

jtwhitehouse@vindy.com