Tuesday, March 14, 2000
School board says to expect cuts
BY JAMES PILCHER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Cincinnati Board of Education on Monday ordered the city's public school system to present a balanced budget for the next fiscal year, with board President Rick Williams guaranteeing cuts were on the way.
“We don't know where they'll come yet, but that is the beauty of the process,” Mr. Williams said after a specially scheduled committee-of-the-whole meeting that led into the night's regularly scheduled board meeting.
“What we are doing is looking at our mandated requirements — what we have to pay for — and building up from there.”
With the district's failure earlier this month to pass a 6.5-mill levy increase that would have brought in an additional $36 million, Cincinnati Public Schools are looking at an $18 million deficit for fiscal year 2001.
That's using the current budget as a guideline and adjusted for inflation and the ever-increasing impact of charter schools. The system should receive about $358 million in revenues next fiscal year, most coming from local property taxes.
To meet the shortfall, CPS Superintendent Steven Ada mowski last week recommended that the board approve a $25 million loan he said would keep the system stable.
But Monday, the board asked administrators to present several options on what could be cut, including transportation and the system's popular magnet programs.
The board did not give administrators a deadline, but Mr. Williams said members expect to see alternatives, including possible areas to be cut at a soon-to-be scheduled commit tee-of-the-whole meeting.
“We need to see it on paper so we can really get down to the dirty groundwork and look at the costs,” board member Catherine Ingram said.
Board finance committee Chairwoman Lynn Marmer said the process could help administrators rethink the way they budget for the system.
Mr. Adamowski said the exercise would cause havoc within the system, with different departments wondering whether they would be cut and parents wondering whether their children's schools would be closed in consolidations.
“I guarantee our student-achievement results will be up when they come out this summer,” Mr. Adamowski said. “If we can bring some modicum of stability to the system will only help matters. So to go through this exercise about our options now ... will really bring up the level of discontent.”
Board member Sally Warner also asked whether the board was willing to sacrifice atten dance by cutting buses for high schools or make elementary students who live closer to their school than the state standard of 1.2 miles walk to class, no matter how dangerous the neighborhood.
Mr. Williams said:
“The reality is that we have tried and failed to get the last two levies increased, so we can't be thinking about the popularity of what we are doing, and we can't have our eye on the next levy vote.”
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