One Thing for Sure Amid School Budget Uncertainty: All Bets are Off

Tensions steadily rose at Thursday's  meeting in Strongsville as parents voiced concerns and frustrations over the looming impact of proposed state cuts that could reduce the district’s funding by as much as 20 percent for the 2011-12 school year.

Parents wanted to know which educational programs were going to be cut or eliminated, if the proposed would help to save expensive gifted student programs in 2011-12 and whether the district would slash employee wages in order to help balance the budget.

The board’s collective response: we don’t know, no and probably not, respectively.

Board president Jennifer Sinisgalli urged the public to not be alarmed but stressed preparedness, given that the state’s and the district’s economic landscape will shift over the next several months.

“As they say, the devil is in the details and we don’t know all those yet,” Superintendent Jefferey Lampert said. “In fact, we’re waiting for some possible simulations of how exact dollars might flow down into this district (from the state)…so we just have to wait and see how that shakes out. I would hope we could get closure or at least close to closure somewhere around the end of this school year in June.”

However, it is known that if the proposed school levy does not pass on the May ballot, then the district will face millions in budget shortfalls in the 2012-13 year, he said.

Shortly after those remarks,  resident Jay Phillips, took the podium to air grievances with some of the board’s decisions in regard to the recent ratification of a.

“Given that we’ve just been through the worst recession in many years and the average citizen has had to give up as much as 20 percent of their compensation in one form or another…we’ve ratified a teacher agreement that to my calculations, at most, gives up about 3 percent (or about $2 million).”

“I’m concerned because I don’t think you have a snowball’s chance in Miami of getting a levy passed in May…I know teacher unions are tough to deal with, but now was the time to say ‘hey, we need more folks.' I would’ve thought you would’ve negotiated a contract with at least 10 percent (or roughly $10 million in wage and benefit reductions)…and you know what, we probably wouldn’t have had to pass this levy.”

Sinisgalli countered and asked, “Do you really think an employee association is going to vote for a $10 million reduction to their benefits?”

She also noted that a combined 76 staff members and teachers will have retired by the end of this year through attrition, which will work to significantly bring down the district’s total compensation expenditure going into the 2011-12 school year.

Lampert defended the actions of the board concerning the ratification, saying that if teachers’ compensation was cut by too much, then their salaries would no longer be competitive and scores of experienced Strongsville educators would resign in search of better wages and benefits.

He then vented his frustrations with the state and concluded that all bets are off regarding school funding until he and his colleagues find out more from Ohio’s legislators this summer.