The article below is from today's Columbus Dispatch. Isn't Marion City Schools the place our current PLSD superintendent came from?
UNDER FISCAL WATCH
Marion schools improve academics, but remain in red
Friday, June 18, 2004
Holly Zachariah
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The choice was between academic emergency or financial watch. Marion City Schools officials chose the latter.
After making enough improvements to remove the district from the state?’s academicemergency list, they decided more staffing cuts weren?’t the best way to avoid a deficit.
So rather than make more reductions, and potentially land the district back in academic trouble, they asked the state for a fiscal-watch designation.
Ohio Auditor Betty D. Montgomery complied yesterday, adding the district to the state?’s growing list of schools in financial straits.
The new designation means the state auditor?’s office and the Ohio Department of Education will advise the district on debt reorganization and cost-cutting measures.
''We?’ve already cut $2.5 million from our budget to reduce the staff size by 57 people,'' Superintendent William Zwick said. ''We refuse to do anything more because our programs are going to be hurt, the students suffer and then we can?’t recover.''
In the 2002-03 school year, the district met eight of 22 requirements on the state?’s academic report card, an improvement that moved it from academic-emergency status to academic watch. This year?’s report cards will be issued in August, and Zwick doesn?’t want a backslide.
He wants the state to review the district?’s operations, confident auditors will see that there are no excesses in the $40 million general-fund budget.
''It?’s time for the state to step up to the plate and realize districts have cut as deep as they can,'' he said. ''We want to know just where we stand.''
Even with the cuts, at month?’s end, the district will end this fiscal year $360,000 in the hole. Without additional cuts, the deficit is expected to grow to $2.6 million by June 2005.
The district submitted a plan to the Ohio Department of Education in April but it didn?’t do enough to erase the potential deficits, said Joe Case, Montgomery?’s spokesman.
Instead, Marion officials asked the state for help.
Marion is the ninth of Ohio?’s 612 districts to be placed on the fiscal-watch list. Nine other districts have been elevated to the next tier ?— fiscal emergency.
The 5,500-student Marion district is wrapping up a $92 million Ohio School Facilities Commission building project that began in 1999.
But, Zwick said, there must be money to operate those new schools.
In March, 68 percent of the voters rejected a levy that would have raised almost $3.7 million a year. It would have provided the district its first new operational money since 1995.
The district will try again to pass the levy in August.
hzachariah@dispatch.com
By Concerned Parent
UNDER FISCAL WATCH
Marion schools improve academics, but remain in red
Friday, June 18, 2004
Holly Zachariah
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The choice was between academic emergency or financial watch. Marion City Schools officials chose the latter.
After making enough improvements to remove the district from the state?’s academicemergency list, they decided more staffing cuts weren?’t the best way to avoid a deficit.
So rather than make more reductions, and potentially land the district back in academic trouble, they asked the state for a fiscal-watch designation.
Ohio Auditor Betty D. Montgomery complied yesterday, adding the district to the state?’s growing list of schools in financial straits.
The new designation means the state auditor?’s office and the Ohio Department of Education will advise the district on debt reorganization and cost-cutting measures.
''We?’ve already cut $2.5 million from our budget to reduce the staff size by 57 people,'' Superintendent William Zwick said. ''We refuse to do anything more because our programs are going to be hurt, the students suffer and then we can?’t recover.''
In the 2002-03 school year, the district met eight of 22 requirements on the state?’s academic report card, an improvement that moved it from academic-emergency status to academic watch. This year?’s report cards will be issued in August, and Zwick doesn?’t want a backslide.
He wants the state to review the district?’s operations, confident auditors will see that there are no excesses in the $40 million general-fund budget.
''It?’s time for the state to step up to the plate and realize districts have cut as deep as they can,'' he said. ''We want to know just where we stand.''
Even with the cuts, at month?’s end, the district will end this fiscal year $360,000 in the hole. Without additional cuts, the deficit is expected to grow to $2.6 million by June 2005.
The district submitted a plan to the Ohio Department of Education in April but it didn?’t do enough to erase the potential deficits, said Joe Case, Montgomery?’s spokesman.
Instead, Marion officials asked the state for help.
Marion is the ninth of Ohio?’s 612 districts to be placed on the fiscal-watch list. Nine other districts have been elevated to the next tier ?— fiscal emergency.
The 5,500-student Marion district is wrapping up a $92 million Ohio School Facilities Commission building project that began in 1999.
But, Zwick said, there must be money to operate those new schools.
In March, 68 percent of the voters rejected a levy that would have raised almost $3.7 million a year. It would have provided the district its first new operational money since 1995.
The district will try again to pass the levy in August.
hzachariah@dispatch.com
By Concerned Parent
