By MARK TODD - Staff Writer - mtodd@starbeacon.com
CONNEAUT — Uncertain funding in the months to come means the Conneaut Area City Schools District must cut spending to the bone and reduce staff where possible, Superintendent Kent Houston said at Thursday’s Board of Education meeting.
“We can’t let our financials get out of hand,” he said. “We have to keep trimming and trimming by attrition so people don’t lose their jobs.”
Houston’s words came hours before lawmakers agreed to delay the final round of state income-tax cuts, a move that will fill a projected $850 million budget gap. Without the compromise, school funding would have had to make up the gap.
Forecasts see the Conneaut district on the brink of fiscal caution in 2011, Houston said. Federal stimulus money has helped keep local schools in the black, but problems will arise when the funds run out, Houston said.
Conditions would have worsened considerably without the income-tax-cut delay, a plan promoted by Gov. Ted Strickland. Conneaut faced a multimillion-dollar loss of funding had the education budget borne the brunt of the shortfall, officials said.
The tax-cut delay will affect Ohioans to varying degrees. People making $18,000 or less, will pay $2 more for 2009 than they would have had they received the 4.2 percent reduction in the tax rate, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. People earning $319,000 or more, will pay $1,980 more.
The majority of Ohioans earn between $32,000 and $76,000 a year and will pay an additional $37 to $69.
Strickland says he plans to revive the cut for the 2011 tax year, but others aren’t so sure, citing the state’s budget woes, which will be amplified when federal stimulus funding is exhausted.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this story.
