Woodridge Schools Face Bleak Budget

Without voter approval of its 5.88-mill emergency levy request on the Nov. 8 ballot, the will be operating in the red by nearly $600,000 in 2014. And, by 2016, that deficit will balloon to $10.6 million.

Those figures are among many contained in the district’s Five-Year Forecast, which was presented to the Board of Education on Tuesday by Treasurer Deanna Levenger. The Ohio Department of Education requires all districts to file the forecast document each October.

“It’s a management tool that the board … uses to look at revenue and expenditure trends and fund balances,” Levenger said. “You can see very quickly when we will be in a deficit position.”

The district’s downward financial slide has been under way for two years. The decline is attributed to the rising costs of salaries, health care, and educational, maintenance and transportation supplies combined with reduced revenue from personal property taxes and a significant decline in interest income.

“2008-2009 was our break-even year. Since then, we have been eating into our carryover or spending our reserves,” Levenger said. “Real estate taxes are the brunt of our funding. We are, in essence, driven by real estate taxes – and they have remained flat.”

The district is also starting to feel the effects of a decision made by state legislators in 2005 to eliminate Ohio's local property tax on machinery, equipment and inventory used in business.

“The state’s phased-out elimination of the tangible tax reimbursement that went in place in 2006 is a big issue for us. In a two-year time period we will lose $1.1 million from our general fund, starting this year,” Levenger explained.

The only options available to a district in such a situation are implementing budget cuts and proposing a levy. Woodridge has done both, starting with $1.4 million in budget reductions made this year.

Levenger said staff changes were made, including the elimination of two teaching positions, and supply purchases were cut. The district also implemented a new administrative salary grid that lowers salary calculations for newly hired administrators, of which there were four this year.

On Nov. 8, district voters will be asked to approve a 5.88-mill 10-year emergency levy that will generate $2.85 million annually. If approved, the levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 home about $180 each year. “That’s a little bit less than 49 cents a day,” Levenger said.

Passage of the measure would keep the district solvent through at least the 2015-2016 school year.

Staffers throughout the district are doing their part to help cut costs. The district’s two unions representing teachers and support staff are operating under contracts that call for employees to contribute more for health care coverage. Teachers agreed to go three years without a raise, while support staffers agreed to two years without raises, with a 1 percent bump in the third year.

Even Levenger is doing her part. On Tuesday the board accepted her retirement resignation effective Dec. 31, then awarded her with a new three-year, seven-month contract that cuts her salary by 20 percent, or $23,000, annually. The savings will add up to $83,000 through the contract’s end.

Levenger, district treasurer the past 11 years, also served as assistant treasurer for 12 years before leaving the district in the early 1990s. Last month her office received the Ohio Auditor of State Award for exemplary financial reporting in fiscal year 2010. She has filed 10 years worth of “clean” audits.

Nov. 8.