Today continues a five-part series called “Funding the Future,” which examines the financial picture of the Mansfield City Schools.
Here is how the series will unfold. Stories will publish each day at 10 a.m.:
Monday: An overview with the recent financial history in the district.
Tuesday: How MCS found its way into — and out of — fiscal oversight
Wednesday: MCS enrollment declines, deficit-spending continues
Thursday: Five things you may not know about MCS finances
Friday: How can you get involved in the effort?
MANSFIELD — Teacher cuts are familiar territory for Brad Strong.
A sixth-grade math teacher at Malabar Intermediate, Strong has taught at Mansfield City Schools for three decades. He’s been a union officer for the Mansfield School Employees Association for the last two dozen years.
He’s in the midst of the ninth reduction-in-force (RIF) since joining the district in 1995.
What is a five-year forecast?
Twice a year, public school treasurers file a five-year forecast with the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
These forecasts provide a snapshot of a school district’s finances, with finalized data from recent years and short-term projections for coming years. They detail revenues and expenses.
They outline, in broad categorical terms, where district revenues come from and how money is spent.
The biggest came in 2007, after the school board voted to close Ranchwood Elementary, Carpenter Elementary and Simpson Middle School.
According to Strong, more than 100 positions were cut. After retirements and reshuffling, around 90 people lost their jobs.
“We actually rebid the entire district. We rebid every job from the most senior to the least,” he recalled.
“We met multiple times a week. I still have milk crates full of (documents) … I vowed I would quit the union job before I do that again.”
Over the course of Strong’s tenure, the district has experienced significant enrollment decline — leading to a decrease in state funding.
Meanwhile, Ohio legislators created the EdChoice scholarship program in 2005. The program allowed students from certain “underperforming” schools to attend non-public schools using state-funded vouchers. Those funds were then transferred out of their public school district.
Legislators expanded the EdChoice program, first in 2013 and again in 2023. The decision has allowed nearly all Ohio students to enroll in non-public and charter schools and take their share of state funding with them.
“When I started in the district, there were 10 elementary schools, two middle schools and ninth through twelfth grade was at the high school,” Strong recalled. “People are having less kids and there’s more choices out there.”
Enrollment decline has strained the district’s finances for decades, but Strong said he believes several of the RIFs could have been avoided if the district had “right-sized” its staffing along them way.
“We’re now a district of 2,700 kids. We’ve cut the student population in half (since 2004),” he said. “We just kept hiring like there was no problem.”
District’s cash reserves plummeted after release from fiscal emergency
From 2006 to 2016, Mansfield City Schools was under fiscal oversight by the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce.
Richland Source reviewed the district’s five-year forecast submissions dating back to 2010 — the earliest year available. Up until fiscal year 2018, the district largely lived within its means — operating with a budget surplus in every year but one.
But that changed in 2019, when expenditures outpaced revenues by more than $146,000. Since then, the district has only had one year (2021) without an operating deficit.
The district’s cash reserves piqued in 2018.
The Ohio Association of School Business Officials recommends a school district hold no less than 60 days’ worth of annual operating expenses in its reserves throughout a five-year forecast period.
Six months after being released from state fiscal emergency, the district ended the 2016-2017 school year with 97.5 days of cash on hand.
By the summer of 2019, that figure was trending down, but was still well above the 60-day threshold.
With the infusion of $23 million in COVID-19 relief funds, the district’s ending days cash rose slightly in the early years of the pandemic. But once federal COVID-19 relief funds dried up, the district’s reserves began to fall. Mansfield City Schools had less than 52 days’ cash by the end of fiscal year 2023 and 30 by the end of fiscal year 2024.
The district’s November five-year forecast predicted that by June 30 of this year, the district will have just three days’ worth of operating expenditures left in its coffers.
District has high level of student poverty
District officials point to several factors in the rising cost of educating today’s youth. Inflation has pushed up the cost of supplies and services. Insurance costs continue to soar. Many students at Mansfield City Schools face significant challenges outside of the classroom and need additional support.
Mansfield City Schools has a high level of student poverty — so high that the district offers all students free breakfast and lunch though a partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture.
Last school year, approximately 89 percent of students were designated as economically disadvantaged, according to school district data. The district had at least 278 students who were homeless at some point during the 2023-2024 school year.
The district also has a high number of transient students. More than 18 percent of students spent less than half of the 2023-2024 school year in the district because they moved in or out of the area, according to Mansfield City School’s most recent Ohio School Report Card.
Then there’s the fact that even if students in the district opt not to attend public school, Mansfield City Schools still has to provide transportation.
Supt. Stan Jefferson is quick to point out that Mansfield City isn’t the only district that’s struggling financially — or making cuts. Districts in Reynoldsburg, Ravenna and Findlay are reducing their budgets by millions of dollars.
District received $23 million in COVID-19 relief funds
The COVID-19 pandemic brought on additional challenges. Teachers and students had to rapidly adapt to remote learning.
Once students were able to return to the classroom, educators were charged with addressing not only learning loss, but the social and emotional toll the previous years of isolation had on children.
MCS board President Chris Elswick said facilities costs rose as the district spent money on ventilation upgrades, security upgrades and extra cleaning supplies.
“Our maintenance staff had to go in every day and spray down tables,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mansfield City continued to offer a remote option for families — the Tyger Digital Academy — through the 2023-2024 school year. The board voted last summer to close the TDA due to low enrollment and the district’s need to trim expenses.
“Nobody talks about COVID anymore. COVID changed the entire world. We don’t even talk about that as a factor in how we got here,” Elswick said.
Strong disagreed. He said the district did make good decisions regarding the use of COVID-19 funds, like updating curriculum and supplementing staff costs, but officials should have had a plan in place for post-pandemic finances.
Strong said he’s asked district officials for specifics on how COVID-19 funds were spent, but he hasn’t received a detailed response.
“No one seems to have a good answer for that,” Strong said. “How do you get $23 million extra and then you’re broke the minute it runs out?”
Even compared to similar districts, Mansfield City Schools spends more than average
From 2010 to 2024, Mansfield City Schools spent an average of $2,800 more annually per pupil than other similar districts.
Even after adjusting for inflation, the district’s per pupil expenditures have steadily climbed since reaching a low point in 2015.
How we define similar districts
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce defines similar districts based on factors like enrollment, population density, median adjusted gross income, poverty, racial makeup and educational attainment.
Mansfield City’s similar districts are defined by ODEW as other average-sized, urban, high poverty school districts. Click here for more information.
Board president Chris Elswick said he believes the high percentage of students with special needs is the main reason the district spends much more per pupil than similar districts around the state.
Mansfield City also had 29.8 percent students with an identified disability — far higher than the state average of 15.9 percent and ‘similar districts’ average of 19.8 percent.
“We have a lot of kids that need one-on-one paraprofessionals that have to stay with them all day,” Elswick said. “We have a lot of extra costs in transportation to different treatments.”
Treasurer Tammy Hamilla agreed.
“A lot of districts around us that have a similar number of students, however, we don’t have similar student populations,” she said.
“It takes a lot of money to educate kids that have disabilities or special needs, so our spending may be higher because our population isn’t the same.”
Strong has a different opinion. He believes the main reason the district overspends is because it’s overstaffed.
“The MSEA on many occasions challenged the hiring of additional administrative positions, as well as how many new teacher hires were occurring every year, but it fell on deaf ears,” Strong said.
“This financial ‘cliff’ has been discussed for multiple years, as the five-year forecast told us this was coming, yet this administration did little to prevent it. Now major reductions must occur all at once, when the administration could have chosen to ‘right size’ along the way.”
Strong said he doesn’t envy the school board members who have to make those tough decisions. He attributed district’s financial situation to district administrators who failed to plan for the future.
“Our school board entrusts the administration to inform them. School board members don’t know day to day what the runnings of the district are. Their job is to have big picture oversight of the district,” he said.
“They count on the administration. But we’ve had several administrations that haven’t thought fiscally responsibly. It dates back 20 years.”
In his view, it will take a mindset shift to get the district on solid financial footing for the long haul.
“We think very short term. We’re reactionary, we’re not proactive,” Strong said.
“We’ve been scared to do the right things. We have good people, but we don’t have leaders. Somebody’s got to rock the boat a little bit.”
(Coming Thursday: Five things you may not know about Mansfield City Schools finances.)
