Can OGS afford it?
OHIO — Most of the easy answers have been found by the Future of Ohio High School committee, and now it’s time for the tough questions.
At Monday’s committee meeting, Superintendent Sharon Flesher laid out the facts and the estimates of what it would cost the Ohio Grade School District if the high school district was no longer there.
To come up with the numbers, Flesher said she took the actual expenses of the high school for the current year and subtracted all the strictly high school expenses.
Then it got harder. Flesher then took the current grade school budget and added any estimated expenses the district might see if the high school either consolidated with another district, or deactivated and tuitioned its students elsewhere.
“This is my best guess,” Flesher said. “There aren’t sure numbers, but I did the best as I could.”
The financial differences between the two options could be significant. Flesher said that if the high school district consolidated, the grade school would be responsible for the entire maintenance of the school building; transportation costs would be the responsibility of the newly-formed district; and the grade school could have one person be both superintendent and principal.
If the high school district deactivated, the grade school would continue to share maintenance costs of the building; transportation costs would be the responsibility of the high school district; and both a superintendent and principal would still be required.
Since the report was on the financial impact on the grade school, Flesher did not include possible tuition costs if the district was deactivated, but she said state law allows school districts to charge up to 110 percent of their current tuition costs.
Flesher said the projected figures were only projections. The costs for faculty assumed full-time staff members would continue to work only part-time, which she called unlikely.
“It would be extremely difficult to maintain that staff,” she said.
The bottom line showed that that scenario would cost the grade school an additional $295,506 per year if the district consolidated and $95,793 if the district deactivated.
If the grade school district attempted to keep as many of the staff at full-time as possible, those numbers would jump to $401,308 for consolidation and $201,595 for deactivation.
Another factor not included was the new tax rate. The rate would remain the same if the district deactivated, but if the district consolidated with another district, committee member Harold Albrecht said the assessments of the two districts would need to be combined to come up with a new tax rate.
Still another factor was the general financial outlook, which remains uncertain due to the state’s financial crisis and the proposed wind turbine project, which could bring as much as $1.5 million annually into the two districts in the next few years.
The committee pushed the date of its next meeting back to Sept. 9 to allow Flesher time to finish working on negotiations and the budget. At the September meeting, the committee will review the final reports that will be presented to the school boards.
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