Time and money were the main topics addressed by Newbury and Berkshire school boards and superintendents Tuesday during a public meeting on consolidating the financially struggling school districts.
About 65 residents from both districts listened at Newbury Elementary Auditorium to a presentation about the progress the administrations have made to get the consolidation issue on the ballot this November and issues attending the move.
Newbury Superintendent Richard Wagner reviewed a list of questions he has received from residents, including a query why the district continues to ask voters to pass levies and doesn’t live within its means.
Rising costs of everything, unfunded mandates from the state, and the necessity to provide special education programs for which expenses increase without control were just a few answers he offered.
“It’s difficult to live within your means when you don’t know what’s coming around the corner,” Wagner said.
Newbury Schools are using up the district’s carry over funds and will be in red ink territory within the year without passing an emergency levy in May. If consolidation occurs, the new board may cease to collect the entire levy, Wagner has said in previous meetings.
Consolidating with Berkshire School District has been discussed for at least seven years, he said. The districts sat down at the table about a year ago after the Geauga County Education Service Center got the districts together.
Would consolidation mean no more levies to pass? Wagner said he couldn’t promise that, but he is pretty sure the schools won’t receive more operating money from the state. Consolidation offers economies of scale that will mean improved opportunities for students, and it would put the new district near the top of the priority list for some state funds to build a new school, he said.
Berkshire Superintendent Doug DeLong said a better education for students depends on money. Combining student populations is part of the answer.
“The more students you have, the more things you can offer. That’s just the way it works,” he said. “This is first and foremost a financial issue.” Newbury may run out of money this year but Berkshire’s five-year projection shows that district also will need to pass another levy in a few years, he said.
A Berkshire resident suggested a one-year moratorium on the vote to give voters more time to become better informed. Several people said there hasn’t been enough communication on the issue, but another said she has been reading about consolidation activities in the Geauga County Maple Leaf and other peapers for more than a year.
Newbury School Board Member Greg Munn said, historically, consolidation was discussed in 1964 and again in the ‘90s.
“Each school district has gone down this path,” he said, and the most recent progress is promising. “It does make a lot of sense,” Munn said.
A Berkshire resident said there are no studies that show finances and academic improvement are related.
Munn replied the financial numbers, so far, show a cost savings for a consolidated district.
“It’s hard to change, especially when both schools have rich traditions,” said Newbury BOE President Marty Sanders. “All we’re trying to do … is get it to the voters.”
Newbury BOE member John Gingerich said he, his mother and grandfather all graduated from Berkshire and Berkshire BOE member John Manfredi attended Newbury schools.
“When I first came on the board, I was 100 percent against consolidation,” Gingerich said, adding he had read studies showing districts that consolidated didn’t do well, but his position has changed.
“Those (studies were of) unwilling consolidations,” said Wagner, or consolidations forced on the districts.
Gingerich said each school board will have to vote on whether to place the issue on the November ballot. More information will become available as the two district treasurers finish their financial plan and submit it by the end of March.
“I think everybody is still gathering information,” Gingerich said.
Manfredi said a consolidation hasn’t been done in Ohio in so many years the treasurers and administrations are having to reinvent the process.
“They had to dig the information up. There’s no template,” he said, adding that they have been working with folks very familiar with school finance to develop the plan.
He emphasized that getting additional funding from the state is unlikely.
“If we stay the way we are, we are not going to get more money. We’ve been told,” Manfredi said. The district loses 30-35 students a year and, as student census goes down, teachers still will have to be cut.
“This is very hard to face,” he said. “Every year our costs continue to rise (for each) student.”
The cost of educating a student is a fairly simple formula: district expenses divided by the number of students equals cost per student, Manfredi said. Because Berkshire has lower property value and more students, than Newbury, the cost of educating a student in Berkshire was $9,214 in 2013, but the cost to Newbury was $12,650, according to the presentation.
The real economy of scale would be to have one facility for K-12, he said, which would cost at least $40 million.
“Do we have the funding for it? No,” he said, but a consolidated district could lobby the state facilities commission constantly for help.
“None of these numbers are real popular with us, either,” Manfredi said, adding that the boards understand the issue is not whether the football team wears purple or red.
“We have to stay black,” he said, referring to the bottom line, and continue to educate students.
“We love these kids and want to provide them the best education we can,” Manfredi said, to a round of applause from both sides of the aisle.
Newbury resident Chip Hess said he has been hearing about the consolidation movement for two years and there have been public meetings over the last year.
“(The boards) took more than a year to research and had the courage to go down the road to consolidation,” he said. “Keep the courage. It’s best for both districts.”
Newbury BOE member Susan Arnold said the districts are already very involved with each other and have been for generations.
“We are neighbors. We are divided by a line. But we want what’s best for these children,” she said. “We have to remember we are neighbors.”
The crows applauded and she urged anyone with questions to email any board members or to call.
“We want to hear all sides,” Manfredi said. “We’re just trying to do what is best for our children.”
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Consolidation Queries Answered by Newbury, Berkshire BOEs
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