School Board discusses budget, enrollment

Lorain City Schools will start the new academic year with almost $21 million in the bank.

Pinning down an exact number of students will come later.

On Aug. 20, the Lorain City School Board discussed the complexities of calculating the budget and the head count for the 201819 school year.

In his report to the board, district Treasurer Joshua Hill noted Lorain Schools ended the last school year on June 30 with a cash balance of $20.9 million.

“This is the true cash balance,” Hill said.

Board members Tony Dimacchia, Yvonne Johnson, Bill Sturgill and Timothy Williams acknowledged this summer there was some confusion about the district’s budgetary calculations finishing out the past school year and heading into the 2018-19 school year.

The end-of-year figure was greater than the cash balance of $16.41 million that Lorain Schools had at the start of the 2017-18 school year.

The final number also came in higher than the ending cash balance of $15.38 million that Hill projected for the school year.

Board members asked how the numbers and Hill’s monthly financial report jibed with the fiveyear budget forecasts that the board approves.

“We did better than what I projected,” Hill said. “Keeping in mind, the projections that are on here are the forecast, and I assume kind of worst case scenario when I forecast.

“You’re always trying to be fiscally responsible to manage and make sure you’re not taking into account every possible kind of outcome.”

Lorain Schools has an overall budget of more than $98 million, according to the school district website.

The district also is saving money within its budget overall, Hill said after the meeting.

He also was appointed by Lorain Schools CEO David Hardy Jr. to serve as chief strategy and innovation officer for the district.

Hill acknowledged the school board members have stated they have some disagreements with the chief executive officer and how he does things.

However, Hill said Hardy has given him more control to measure how the district is spending its money.

Hardy has been firm about the tagline “at or below,” meaning the price of any changes in school programs must be at or below current costs, Hill said.

“There’s some savings there,” he said. “We have started looking at every dollar.”

Enrollment trends

Williams also asked about enrollment trends for the 2018-19 school year.

The head count is important, Williams said, because Lorain and other public school districts receive money per student from the state.

Lorain’s enrollment is expected to remain stable for the upcoming school year, Hill said.

The figure likely will be 6,650 to 6,800 students, he said.

About 1/3 of all Lorain students are in charter schools or attend classes in other districts due to open enrollment, Hill said.

In the opening weeks of school, some students in the school district will start in Lorain Schools but leave, or begin classes elsewhere and come back, he said.

Williams noted if Lorain students start the school year in another district or a charter school, but then return to Lorain Schools, then Lorain Schools have a difficult time recovering state money sent to the other district or charter school.

“At some stage, we should have kind of ended the influx and the exit,” Williams said.

Dimacchia asked for an enrollment report for the board meeting of Sept. 17.

Where are students?

When an audience member asked for more information about tracking where students are, Williams noted Lorain is “a very transient district.”

He gave the example of one building that had a 60 percent turnover rate, meaning 60 percent of the children who started classes there, were not in that building at the end of the school year.

It’s an indicator of a school district with lower home ownership and higher poverty rates, because then students do not have fixed living conditions, Williams said.

Using a state number system for students has given school districts more ability to track where students are, but that is not ideal, he said.

“It’s very difficult, and not to mention how it impacts learning,” because students move among buildings, teachers and classes, Williams said.

Tracking students affects Lorain Schools’ graduation rate because if high school students move out of the district and Lorain Schools officials never learn where they go, they can be considered drop-outs, he said.

Hill agreed the student information affects the finances and the state-issued school district report cards that grade each district on academic performance.

The subject is “probably one of the more ignored areas of schooling,” he said.

“It’s something that directly impacts on every level, and more attention needs to be paid to it,” Hill said.