ONTARIO — Ontario Local Schools won’t be making major spending cuts over the next few years, but the district might have to dip into its savings due to shortfalls in state foundation funding.
Treasurer Randy Harvey reviewed his estimates of the district’s financial future during a May 12 school board meeting. Harvey noted that his five-year forecast is just a prediction and plenty could change based on the state legislature’s decisions regarding school funding cuts in the coming months.
“There’s going to be assumptions that are built into this, quite a few of them,” he said.
Ontario Schools recently took a general funding cut of $258,406 after the state implemented a series of budget reductions. Harvey based his forecast on the prediction that the state will continue funding at the reduced amount over the next four years.
If that turns out to be the case, the district will receive close to 1.3 million less in state funding than Harvey had predicted before the onset of the pandemic. This would cause the district’s expenditures to exceed revenues for the next five years.
“All five of these years, we are spending more than we’re bringing in,” Harvey said. “That was not the case when I brought this to you in November, right after the levy. This is due to the cuts from the state.
“It’s a very unfortunate situation,” Harvey said. “Our community stepped up and got us the levy, taxed themselves additionally to help the schools out. And then to turn around and all of a sudden, lose $258,000 of that, potentially more, that’s what disheartening.”
Harvey said with a fund balance of just over $4 million, the district could weather sustained cuts or larger cuts next year, provided that state funding eventually returns to pre-COVID numbers.
He did not project major budget cuts in the coming years, but rather that the district would dip into its savings if necessary. According to Harvey, the district is already the seventh-lowest spending school district per student in Ohio.
“I can’t cut that when I’m already the seventh-lowest spending and still provide a quality education,” he said.
While forecasted general property tax revenues were up due to the levy, Harvey expects the school won’t see those funds right away. He anticipates the amount of unpaid property taxes will double this year.
Harvey isn’t the only school employee waiting to hear how decisions at the state level will affect his operations. Mike Ream, director of education, said plans are in place to continue online schooling next year if the state does not allow students to return.
“I want to be super clear, in no way am I saying that we’re going to be virtual in the fall,” Ream said. “Our hope and our desire is to be back open as normal at the start of next school year, but I don’t think we’d be doing justice to ourselves and our students if we weren’t at least considering what we could do if we were forced back into this situation again next school year.”
Ream told the board that if there were to be virtual schooling next year, it would include an increase in live instruction, where teachers record videos of themselves teaching the material for students to watch in real time.
“We would be able to implement that K-12 right from the get go at the start of next school year if we were forced to do it,” Ream said.
