With State Budget Final, Kent Schools Know How Much They'll Lose

With approval of Ohio's budget less than two weeks ago, the Kent City Schools know just how much state money they're going to lose in the next two years.

Kent City Schools Treasurer Debbie Krutz said several changes at the state level played a factor at the local level.

"Three different components of current state funding for primary and secondary education are affected by the new biennium budget," Krutz said in an email.

• State Aid is kept at the same level as the past two years. Initially, Gov. John Kasich’s budget proposal would have meant a net loss of nearly $100,000 during the biennium for Kent schools, but the final version of the budget restores this funding component to the same levels.

• Federal stimulus dollars received from the state (known as State Fiscal Stabilization Funds) helped Ohio school districts pay the bills when the state cut its funding for education two years ago. These funds have expired and were not replaced in the new state budget, which is a loss of $1,789,382 in operating funds over the next two years for Kent schools.

• Tangible Personal Property Tax loss reimbursement phase out will be accelerated in the new state budget. Ohio’s businesses no longer pay this tax on the value of their machinery, inventory and equipment. The state was reimbursing school districts, on a set schedule, for this property tax loss. But the new state budget accelerates the phase out of this reimbursement. This will cost Kent Schools $2,239,052 over the next two years.

Krutz said the total loss to Kent schools in the next two years totals more than $4 million for the new two-year state budget. 

"This equates to more than a 15 percent drop in our state support," she said.

Late last month, before the budget passed, Kent City Schools Superintendent Joseph Giancola talked to residents at about the anticipated cuts.

Giancola said in the past four years the district has saved $1 million a year through salary freezes and other means.

"And in cash basis accounting, if you save a million dollars … and don’t put those expenses back the next year, that’s another million, and the following year another million," he said. As a result, the district expects to save a total $20 million after five years.

With the budget cuts final, Giancola said the district will have to continue to look at ways to cut costs — like the — to avoid putting a levy on the ballot.

"We would like to stay away from the community with any request for operating millage in our five-year forecast as long as we can," he said.