Dayton-area schools spend more, have fewer students

Most districts show pattern that triggers increased debate.

Most school districts in the Dayton area have seen their enroll- ments decline even as spending at each one of them is up, a pattern that is triggering debate over how much control individual districts have over what they spend.

“We think it’s absurd that district spending continues to go up when enrollment goes down,” said Greg Lawson, research fellow at the right-leaning Buckeye Institute. “We have a completely distorted school funding system that makes no sense whatsoever.”

However, education advocates like Barbara Shaner of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials said the spending increases are mostly unavoidable, attributing them to employee health care costs and the expense of complying with new state and federal mandates, while districts also restored pay raises that they froze during and after the recession.

Arguing that many costs are structural, Beavercreek school treasurer Peggy Rucker said her district has had increased spending but has kept a comparatively low level of staffing per student.

“If you’re in the tea party you have one perspective on that data and if you’re a teacher in negotiations you have a different perspective on it,” Rucker said. “I’m not saying it’s good or bad; I’m just saying what the data is.”

‘The biggest thing, and you should hear this from every treasurer out there ... is salaries and benefits, because we’re a service industry.’ Peggy Rucker Beavercreek school treasurer

A Dayton Daily News analysis of data from the largest 25 local districts in the region found each one spent more this year than three years ago.

The increases ranged from Eaton’s tiny 0.13 percent bump, to growing Mad River’s 24.19 percent increase.

Most of the 25 districts also had enrollment declines during that three-year span, the analysis shows, though the number varies depending on which method of counting is used.

The Ohio Department of Education tracks enrollment three different ways — an October headcount, a “fulltime equivalent” number that takes into account student movement during the school year, and “average daily membership,” which factors out open enrollment students and others for funding purposes.

Regardless of which measure you use, enrollment at a majority of local school districts is down. Via headcount, only Mad River, Beavercreek, Kettering and Springboro had more students this school year than three years ago.

Some districts with large enrollment declines also show large spending increases.

Troy, Piqua and Vandalia-Butler schools were each down in enrollment by more than 6 percent, according to both the headcount and fulltime equivalent measurements. Still, Piqua’s expenditures rose 16.7 percent from 2014-17, while Vandalia-Butler and Troy went up 10 and 8 percent respectively.

Piqua Treasurer Jeremie Hittle said his district has finished financially “in the black” for 10 straight years, despite spending increases such as new staffing to deal with the state’s thirdgrade reading guarantee. Piqua’s largest core spending increase came two years ago, for a litany of reasons, according to Hittle.

They include a 2.5 percent increase in salaries, which also boosted retirement benefits, and a bump in health insurance costs and purchased services from contractors who also gave raises, Hittle said. Projecting the future

Beavercreek’s Rucker said personnel costs are the main driver of the rising costs.

“The biggest thing, and you should hear this from every treasurer out there ... is salaries and benefits, because we’re a service industry,” she said. “(Our budget) is 81 percent salary and benefits in Beavercreek.”

Enrollment declines don’t necessarily mean districts can cut staffing, school officials often point out. A loss of 50 students districtwide can be four kids per grade, which may not be enough to eliminate a teacher from the payroll.

About 20 local school districts were renegotiating their labor contracts this spring, which will have a major impact on salary spending going forward. Most contracts settled so far include 2 to 3 percent base pay increases each year, coupled with the standard “step increases” given when a staffer reaches a new longevity or education benchmark. Those can add another 2 to 3 percent increase in costs.

Each school district submits its five-year forecast to the state in May, projecting what it will spend each upcoming year. Of those 25 largest school districts, only two project a spending decrease in any of the coming years. And those two, Piqua and Northridge, say their one-year dips are because facilities spending boosted this year’s baseline number.

Projected annual increases range from Vandalia-Butler, West Carrollton and Xenia on the low end, with Huber Heights and Beavercreek on the high end — each projecting more than 5 percent spending growth per year.

The state calls these forecasts “as much an art as a science,” and that’s especially the case in odd years, when treasurers have to guess future revenue and spending a month before the two-year state budget is approved.

“Like I told my board this year, the May forecast for sure will change (due to the state budget) ... and Northridge is also still in contract negotiations so that will change for us as well,” Northridge Treasurer Jenna Whitton said. “I honestly don’t know why or what the reasoning is behind having (the forecast) approved in October and May.” Quirks in the system

Lawson of the Buckeye Institute said some problems could be solved if legislators changed the “cap and guarantee” system, which puts a ceiling on some schools’ state funding levels and guarantees others more funding than called for in the state formula — even if they lose students.

“We want to make sure that schools have the resources necessary, but there’s no other business that I can think of that gets to keep making the same amount of money when they have less people buying their product,” Lawson said.

Trotwood-Madison schools have seen an enrollment decline of 1 to 2 percent the past few years, but Treasurer Janice Allen said the state funding formula has “provided the resources that our students need to increase student achievement.”

Trotwood finished this school year with 83 percent of a year’s expenses in the bank, by far the most in the area.

“Our district does not anticipate a levy any time soon barring any unforeseen circumstances,” Allen said. “In FY18 we propose to increase staff by 11 new positions, primarily reading and intervention support teachers for our lower grades. Textbook updates are scheduled for math, health, and world languages.”

West Carrollton was the only local district where expenditures dropped in 2016-17, but Treasurer Ryan Slone said that was a quirk because the school year had one fewer paydays. Revenue remains a concern, he said, because the district is capped under the state’s “cap and guarantee” program at $2.6 million below what the state formula says the schools should get.

West Carrollton finished this school year with 12 percent of a year’s expenses in the bank, the least in the area.

“As we said during our levy campaign, we actually needed more than the 5.5 mills we passed in November 2016,” Slone said. “The 5.5 mills was what we thought the community could afford and would approve.”