Barberton schools take fiscal woes to public

By BOB MOREHEAD

BGNN senior staff writer

BARBERTON  The Barberton Board of Education has been discussing its fiscal straits in public session for several months, but March 16, it invited whoever wanted to come to the middle school to hear it all in person and ask questions.

Board President Tom Harnden declared the gathering a special meeting and all the members were there except Jason Slater, who was excused.

“I know how important good schools are to a community,” Mayor William Judge said.
Judge, pausing on his way to city council to open this meeting, stressed that businesses scrutinize school systems carefully when looking to expand into an area. He added that Barberton was not alone in its fiscal difficulties.

“Many school systems across the entire state are in the same situation,” Judge said.

Superintendent Jason Ondrus and financial consultant Ryan Pendleton recapped how the district got here. In short, all districts have a “levy cycle,” where they have to go for more revenue to stay solvent. This is due to a 50-year-old law that freezes collection rates on most voted levies at the level when they were enacted. This means as property values rise, most collected revenue doesn’t rise with it.
“Costs increase but your revenue doesn’t,” Pendleton said.

Barberton’s last levy was 2013. It should have been due in 2019 or 2020. This was the dawn of the coronavirus pandemic. Schools and employers were shuttered. The federal government freed billions to fill the gaps. Instead of going to the voters, most school districts dammed off the red ink with relief money.

“The plan was to have a soft landing (when that money dried up),” Pendleton said. “That didn’t materialize.”

Aggravating that was the failure in Columbus to renew the Fair Schools Funding Plan, resulting in reductions. Barberton relies on the state for 60% of its revenue. Shakeups at the federal level resulted in further cuts.

Columbus also reformed the property tax system, eroding even more. All of this while costs, particularly energy, soared. Plus, the district had to repay a significant shortage on its health care premiums.

The situation was already bleak. Then, last October, the district learned that the most recent five-year forecasts had overestimated revenue and underestimated expenses.

“We found out about half a million in salaries and benefits had been left off,” Harnden said. “Why? We don’t know.”

Barberton faced going into its 2026-2027 fiscal year $11 million in the hole.

To meet that, the board has cut five administrators, 49 teachers, 33 noncertified staff and reduced professional services, like counseling.

The board is also asking for an 11-mill levy in May, but potential revenue can’t be used in the worksheet to the state. And, even if approved, it wouldn’t start collecting until 2027.

Full effects of a failure are still being studied.

Potential consequences include reductions in the preschool, pay-to-participate sports and other program reductions.

“We’re trying our best to salvage what we can of the student experience,” Ondrus said.

Besides the property tax levy, the district could also ask for an earned income tax. They haven’t yet, Pendleton said, because of the immediacy of the problem. Such a tax takes about 18 months to “mature.”

Facing red ink, even with cuts, Barberton was put on Fiscal Watch status. Officials are candid that the next steps are formalities. Fiscal Emergency, the state’s highest level, is seen as unavoidable. In that status, the board is basically an advisory body. The district will be run by a state-appointed commission.

Historically, the first thing these commissions do is strip the district down to the bare minimum of services required by law. Labor contracts will also be reopened. Some districts have had success keeping “extras” that are ingrained in the community and successful, like Barberton’s preschool, but this is not guaranteed.

The upside of a state takeover is “stabilization funds” from the state. The downside of that is that each disbursal is an advance on the district’s own state money, repayable within two years, with collections starting immediately.