By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
KINGSVILLE TOWNSHIP — Withdrawing Pierpont Township from the Buckeye Local Schools District would have a minimal impact on the district’s finances, according to a preliminary report developed by Superintendent Nancy Williams.
Voters in the entire district will make the decision May 4 on whether Pierpont Township residents will be released to join the Pymatuning Valley Local School District. Supporters of the movement have said their township is more closely aligned with the geography and culture of the PV District than it is with Buckeye.
Sixty-six of the 79 Pierpont Township students who open-enroll in other districts are already going to PV this year, Williams said in her report, which was presented during Tuesday’s board meeting at Kingsville Elementary.
Prior to presenting the numbers, Williams told the audience that the board had decided not to take a position for or against the issue. Nevertheless, during the public comment period, Cameron Wright, a Pierpont resident representing the group that raised the petition to withdraw, asked each board member to state his or her position for the record. Board members were reticent, however.
Vice president Jacqueline Hillyer, sitting in for President Mary Wisnyai, who was absent, said she feels voters should be fully informed and make their own decisions. Mark Estock said he was still looking for information and he would have one vote on the issue: at the ballot box.
Williams said she has not received a fiscal simulation from the Ohio Department of Education, but based upon data from the Ashtabula County auditor, Ohio Department of Taxation and other sources, the impact, from a financial standpoint, would be nearly a wash.
She said the loss of Pierpont Township’s 28.5 square miles of property would decrease district tax revenues by $425,158 annually. The district also would lose state aid for the 108 Pierpont students enrolled in Buckeye this year, for a loss of $666,000.
That would be offset by a reduction of $654,000 in transportation and instructional costs. She said the difference of $12,000 would be made up if just three of the Pierpont students open-enrolled in Buckeye.
Forty-two of the 108 resident Pierpont students are at the high school, and Williams feels a significant number of them would not want to leave Edgewood for Pymatuning Valley in their final years of school.
She pointed out that for Pierpont property owners, the move would increase their real estate taxes by $135 annually for every $75,000 of valuation. However, property owners in the rest of the Buckeye district would not see any change to their tax rates.
Other key points of Williams’ presentation included:
n The PV Board of Education will have 30 days during which to accept or decline the request if voters approve it May 4. The Buckeye Board has no vote in the matter;
n The transfer will not affect Buckeye students who live on the west side of Stanhope-Kelloggsville Road in Denmark Township. That portion of the Buckeye District will not be transferred;
n The impact on staffing in the Buckeye District would be up to four bus routes eliminated and four driver positions cut;
n The 108 students from Pierpont are spread over 13 grades. Affected buildings are Kingsville, 51; Braden, 15; and Edgewood, 42. The impact on instructional staff is unknown at this point. The loss of Pierpont students would allow more open enrollment from other districts, minimizing the impact on certified staff levels;
n Pierpont students will have a very narrow window of opportunity to open-enroll after the vote is taken May 4 in the event they don’t want to go to PV. Nevertheless, Williams is encouraging their families to complete and submit their forms within the district’s normal open-enrollment period April 1 to 15; and
n The longer-term impact of losing the students is difficult to measure because enrollment overall is falling. For the next school year, three elementary buildings would be maintained. The district has a large sixth-grade class, and once that class works through the junior high grades, classes get significantly smaller.
Williams said the district will communicate this information to the public through its April newsletter and let voters make the decision.
“This is the first time this has been rolled out, and we’re just starting to communicate it,” Williams said.
