Treasurer Brian Switzer converses with board member David Riley. (Photo by Ashley McCarty)

Treasurer Brian Switzer converses with board member David Riley. (Photo by Ashley McCarty)

By Ashley McCarty

People’s Defender

The Adams County Ohio Valley School District Board of Education held a special work session on June 8, where finances, inside millage and multi-tiered system of supports were discussed.

At the start of the meeting, Treasurer Brian Switzer presented the monthly financial statement for the district.

“Our property taxes and tangible property taxes are right on where we expected. Overall, they’re up $490,000 because it was a reappraisal year. Below that, I have a minus enrollment. Our foundation money from the state is down because our enrollment is down. Money-wise, we’re down $300,000; student-wise, if you take the ones in-person and add in online students, we’re down almost 200 kids. Halfway down the page, you see a plus sign beside a figure of $2.8 million — year-to-date, our revenues are up by $2.8 million compared to this time last year. That’s because a combination of factors, such as timing on repayment advances on federal grants, transfers are up $1.5 million due to the feds not making settlements and the money gettings transferred back in, and then like I said, $490,000 up in property taxes,” said Switzer.

So, there’s a combination of factors, he said.

“Our salaries and fringe benefits have been hitting right where we expected all year long, up about $510,000, and that’s 2.5 percent raise plus steps that we did in negotiations. I have circled $39,979,897, that’s where we are year-to-date on expenditures. In June, we always back out the Student Health and Wellness money, so that expenditure will go down at least $1.9 million because that’s what’s in the Student Health and Wellness money right now. If we were a business, right now we would have an operating loss of $243,081, but when you take into account the $1.9 million that’s going to get reversed this month, we would have $1.6 million as an operational profit at this point in the year. But, that’s still misleading. June, historically, is a very low revenue month with high expenditure. We still have all of the end-of-year June transfers that we have to make for food service, our school bus order, HB 264 debt payment, plus there are some projects that have not yet cleared for payment,” said Switzer.

According to Switzer, at the end of June, the end-of-year profit is projected to be between $100-200,000.

“Right now, between Student Health and Wellness and ESSER funds, we’re paying for our counselors, nursing contracts, SRO, special education aides that are not individual aides, [among others]. There’s a lot of items that we have cost-shifted to those grants to give the General Fund some relief. If ESSER or Student Health and Wellness ends the General Fund would be looking at picking up those expenses,” said Switzer.

The district will get ESSER II monies on July 1 and has applied for ESSER III this week.

Switzer prepared a diagram of the July 2021 tax bill which explained millage.

Figure One

— General Fund: 16.7 outside mills, 3.3 inside mills totaling 20 mills.

— Permanent Improvement: .5 inside mills

— Classroom Facilities: .5 outside mills

— High School Debt: 3.5 outside mills

— Elementary School Debt: 3.9 outside mills

Total: 28.4 mills

“We have .5 mills in Permanent Improvement. That was moved back in 2007. Classroom Facilities were .5 mills approved when the elementary schools were built. That rolls off in 2027/28. We have two debt issues right now, for a total of 28.4 mills. That’s what everyone will pay when you get your bill. In [figure] two, if the board decides to do nothing, looking across, we still have 20 mills in the General Fund, .5 in Permanent and .5 in Classroom Facilities. The 3.5 is paid off, so the January tax bill based on December activity would save 3.5 mills, so the millage billed to the property owners would be 24.9 mills. [Figure] three, if the board decides to move inside millage — and here’s where it becomes confusing, so I’ve got to explain the General Fund column first — we have the 16.7 outside and 3.3 inside. To move inside millage, you’re moving it out of your General Fund, so [out of the 3.3] 2.5 mills are moved over to Permanent Improvement,” said Switzer.

That would leave .8 inside mills in the General Fund.

“There’s a 20 mill requirement by the Department of Taxation (DOT). DOT requires any school district in Ohio to participate in the School Foundation Program to have at least 20 mills of General Funding. So, the DOT would add 2.5 mills back into our General Fund. So, the net effect, if you look at the January 2022 tax bill, we would now have 19.2 outside millage and .8 inside millage in the General Fund, 3 mills in Permanent Improvement, .5 mills in Classroom Facilities and 3.9 mills on Elementary School Debt for a total of 27.4 mills. So, if you compare that to what the July tax bill was, 28.4 mills, that’s where the overall millage the taxpayer would see the 1 mill reduction. What’s confusing to the everyday person on the street, they don’t realize that the DOT will never let a school district fall below 20 mills in the General Fund. If you have inside millage to move, they automatically raise that back up to 20 mills,” said Switzer.

Switzer said that as far as he knew, that has been a state law since the 1960s.

“I’m a landowner, too, we own quite a bit. I’m both sides of the coin, but I don’t want to see my buildings fall down to nothing, either. I take care of my buildings, so why wouldn’t I want to take care of the buildings my grandkids go to? It’s kind of a Catch-22 in a way,” said Board member Rick Davis.

Switzer touched briefly on the possible outcome of school funding.

“If the Senate’s proposal doesn’t get adopted, if the House’s proposal goes through, we lose our Student Health and Wellness money. [The list of items that pays for], the SROs, counselors, nurses, the General Fund will have to eat that $1.9 million dollars, which is going to change this total picture and if we’re operating in the black or not. By June 30, 2022, there could be a $1.9 million swing all in one year. That’s huge,” said Switzer.

Technology Coordinator Eddie Butcher presented a list of expenditures the technology department had planned through 2023. These items totaled $360,000. There is a planned expenditure list already forming for 2024 and beyond.

As Facilities Manager Steve Wolfe presented at the May 24 meeting, planned maintenance totals for 2021 were $1.3 million, $1.4 million for 2022, $1.5 million for 2023 and $1.5 million for 2024. These totals do not include unplanned projects or items that will happen or the cost involved in preventative maintenance.

“I know the decision that’s before you. I hope that you noticed in the talk I had at the board meeting [that at] no point in that speech were the words millage ever mentioned. I’ve just tried to portray to you what’s coming; the needs that we’re going to have. It’s a concept that’s hard for a lot of people to wrap their heads around — you guys didn’t build school buildings, you built school buildings full of things,” said Wolfe.

”The things that will last the longest are the buildings, that’s why they made them out of brick and concrete. All the perishable items inside of them are all gifted to you on the front-end, but they start fading away eight, 10, 12, 15 years in. That’s on somebody’s dime to keep replenishing those for the 100 years that the shell of the building is going to last.; even the roof is a 20-year thing. It’s just an ongoing cycle to keep replacing the things inside of those buildings as they deteriorate, or are mandated to be changed. So, I’ve just tried to lay out what’s coming.”

Constructing the buildings is the cheapest part of their life cycle, he said.

“If I can offer any wisdom to you, people who make the laws in our state somewhere along the lines realized that most people in the general public wouldn’t understand that concept, and that’s why they gave a provision to allow school districts to move inside millage. If it were a requirement that that was put out to the general public and that was the only way, they know that most people don’t understand that it takes a few million dollars a year sometimes to keep a district like this, just on the buildings and grounds part, to keep on running. A lot of times in a lot of areas those levies wouldn’t pass, so somebody had the foresight to put that provision in there. You certainly wouldn’t be in some new groundbreaking thing to exercise that right,” Wolfe added.

As Switzer referenced, over 100 school districts in Ohio have done that, some right around us, he said.

“I’ve also tried to demonstrate that we as a school district have done a lot on the facilities and grounds side to save money and to be wise with our money. One that popped into my mind on the drive was during our building project when we did our elementary’s and high school, it was built into our project to attach $1.2 million on our sewer line. We negotiated that number down to $400,000. Nobody ever comes up and pats you on the back for that. We got to build our buildings very cheap in the case of our elementary’s. A thought I had yesterday, I’m next door to Brown County, and my kids go to school there. It’s a similar size to Adams County. Manchester is its own district, and we’re everything else,” said Wolfe.

“We have a superintendent making $100,000 a year at Georgetown, Eastern Brown, Western Brown, the vocational school, Fayetteville — that’s $600,000 just in superintendent salaries in a comparatively sized area. You have $600,000 worth of treasurer’s salaries to handle the same amount of work that you’re paying less than $100,000 here. I’ll make this personal, at Eastern Brown, the man who has my job has four buildings and six employees. He has been there four years. If he had been there as many years as I’ve been here, he’d be making about $6,000 more a year than I do. I love him, so I’m not putting him down, but he’s brought no solar to that district, free electricity, he’s not negotiated down $600,000 of sewer bills, those kinds of things. So, I think that we’re prudent and wise with our money, so when we go out and say that we’re going to transfer money, that we can hold our head high,” said Wolfe.

“This is not doom a gloom, and it’s not a threat, but somebody will come here one day to be the facility manager, and hopefully won’t find our current buildings looking like the old elementary schools did. It takes a lot of money to run a school district, and if there’s cost that can be saved somewhere else, I’m not privy to that,” said Wolfe.

We can forecast as hard as we want, and there’s still going to be things that come up, he said.

“The only controversy I’ve heard in any of this is the people out there should have the right [to vote on this]. I get that, I’m a taxpayer, I get that. The thing is, people in the general public can’t be expected to understand the necessaries. To give you a prime example, we’ve had risk management walk through our bus garage, and say, ‘you really shouldn’t be doing business in here.’ So, we know we need a bus garage. We knew to build a bus garage — not even as big as the one we had — was $1.8 million. We prayed, we prayed together, and we found a place that’s 10 times better than the one we’re in, suits our every need, and guess what? It’s half the price.” said Wolfe.

During his speech on May 24, Wolfe invited the public to call or e-mail him.

“I would come to them, I’d bring the data, I closed the PowerPoint with my business card, and then I redistributed that in video form and sent that out to every teacher and I waited for phone calls,” said Wolfe. To date, Wolfe had not received a single text, email, or phone call.

Wolfe favors a plan of moved millage that would provide the district with a maintenance fund but still result in a net decrease in what the community is currently paying.

“People only know what their experiences have been. It’s all in their perspective and their experiences, and it makes it tough because you’re trying to say we need this money, but they have no concept or the value of having the investment in the farmland and what that creates. We all know this as leaders, sometimes you have to make those tough decisions that are not always popular, but you’re planning for the future,” said Board member Gay Lynn Shipley.

President Charlie Bess referenced a book she was gifted by Superintendent Richard Seas.

“My mother’s perspective of school is when she went to school. If they are not active and involved in the educational process with a child in the building or going through it, you know, you have generations of people whose perspective of what education is — and through no fault of their own, that’s their experience — that’s what they know. So, you take that into effect, too. Some of them look at those numbers and it’s just astronomical to them, or the amount of staff that we have to have. As you said, Gay, the right thing isn’t always the easy or popular thing, but we have a totally different perspective than the general public. We are called to bound with the knowledge that we have to make a wise decision that’s both best for the kids and financially prudent for our taxpayers, as well,” said Bess.

Director of Exceptional Education Tracy Spires presented an overview of a multi-tiered system of supports, or MTSS. MTSS is a framework many schools use to give targeted support to struggling students. It is also called the MTSS framework, the MTSS process, or the MTSS model.

MTSS is designed to help schools identify struggling students early and intervene quickly. It focuses on the “whole child.” That means it supports academic growth, but many other areas, too. These include behavior, social and emotional needs, and absenteeism (not attending school).

Before the meeting adjourned, an executive session was held for treasurer evaluation. Meeting minutes will be approved by the board at the next meeting, subject to revisions.