Income tax ‘Blip’ offsets revenue improvement for BW schools

By LENNY C. LEPOLA

News Assis­tant Man­ag­ing Editor

In her report to mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion Mon­day evening, dis­trict trea­surer Feli­cia Drum­mey said there were no rev­enue esti­mates for fis­cal 2013 yet, not until the bud­get is final­ized in Sep­tem­ber. With­out firm rev­enue esti­mates Drum­mey said she was work­ing from trends – com­par­ing last year’s actual rev­enue with this year’s rev­enue — and she found what she called a blip.

“One puz­zling thing is I noticed is an income tax decline of $430,000,” Drum­mey said. “I dis­cov­ered that one tax­payer paid $703,000 in taxes last year, a one-time tax pay­ment that appar­ently was not lot­tery money, that caused this blip.”

Drum­mey said she would have to make a one-time adjust­ment to income tax rev­enue pro­jec­tions to account for the dis­crep­ancy — money that came in last year that will not come in this year.

“Based on the pre­vi­ous fig­ures I pro­jected a 2 per­cent increase in income tax rev­enue, but that included the blip,” Drum­mey said. “I’ll have to reeval­u­ate our rev­enue pro­jec­tions. There has been an improve­ment in income tax rev­enue, but it’s off­set by the blip.”

Drum­mey also said there is a mis­con­cep­tion of how Ohio Lot­tery money sup­ports schools.

“The state has indi­cated that $740 mil­lion of state lot­tery money would be used for edu­ca­tion, but that was com­bined with gen­eral school fund­ing,” Drum­mey said. “What we expe­ri­enced is a decline in school fund­ing. We’re on the state guar­an­tee, and they con­tinue to reduce that.”

Drum­mey said the State of Ohio has removed all traces of lot­tery fund­ing to edu­ca­tion from their web­site; that now there is no way to deter­mine how much money comes to school dis­tricts from the Ohio Lottery.

Dis­trict Direc­tor of Aca­d­e­mic Achieve­ment Angie Pol­lock teamed up with Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion Co-President Erin Barr, who is also a Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist, to present a Race to the Top (RttT) update.

Pol­lock and Barr focused on the Ohio Teach­ers Eval­u­a­tion Sys­tem (OTES) that the school dis­trict began pilot­ing last year as part of its RttT ini­tia­tive. The OTES has been man­dated by the Ohio Leg­is­la­ture and goes live statewide next year.

The OTES is a self-assessment process. Barr said that as part of the pilot pro­gram school dis­trict eval­u­a­tors went through a three-day state train­ing and will be cer­ti­fied by the state.

“The eval­u­a­tion is a two-part process, 50 per­cent based on teacher per­for­mance and 50 per­cent stu­dent growth mea­sure­ment,” Barr said.

Barr said the OTES stu­dent learn­ing objec­tives lend very well to the Big Wal­nut culture.

“This year, the school dis­trict is open­ing the pilot pro­gram to any teacher in the dis­trict that wants to par­tic­i­pate,” Pol­lock added. “These eval­u­a­tions are in place to make cer­tain stu­dents are growing.”

Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Steve Mazzi thanked mem­bers of the Big Wal­nut Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion for work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tively with the school dis­trict on the OTES Pilot Program.

“They know this thing is com­ing down the road,” Mazzi said.

Assis­tant Super­in­ten­dent Gary Bar­ber talked about dis­tri­b­u­tion of mate­r­ial, a.k.a. pri­vate busi­ness and non­profit orga­ni­za­tion adver­tis­ing mate­ri­als brought to school, given to teach­ers, and then sent home with students.

“We’ll go through those mate­ri­als unre­lated to any school activ­ity this year and look at the amount of mate­ri­als that goes home with stu­dents,” Bar­ber said. “We could pos­si­bly put a link online for for-profit busi­nesses, but we want to keep strong part­ner­ships with local busi­nesses and organizations.”

In other business:

• Board mem­bers approved bus routes for the 2012–13 school year. Those bus routes should be posted online on the school dis­trict web­site today, Thurs­day, August 16. Par­ent access to the bus routes is pass­word protected.

• Board mem­bers approved a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing between the school dis­trict and Delaware County Pro­bate and Juve­nile Court. The school dis­trict will pay $8,500 for trained social work­ers to deal with atten­dance prob­lems and bullying.

•Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion: Res­o­lu­tion Autho­riz­ing Big Wal­nut Board of Edu­ca­tion Enter into a Lock­box Mail Deposit Agree­ment with The Delaware County Bank & Trust Company.

• Board mem­bers approved a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing between the Big Wal­nut Board of Edu­ca­tion and the Delaware County Pro­bate and Juve­nile Court.

• Board mem­bers approved bus stops for the 2012–13 school year and autho­rizes the super­in­ten­dent or designee to make changes in bus stops as needed.

• Board mem­bers approved the revised Activ­i­ties Clerk job description.

• Board mem­bers accepted the res­ig­na­tion of the fol­low­ing clas­si­fied employ­ees: Christy Web­ster, bus dri­ver, effec­tive June 30, 2012, due to retire­ment; Art Dun­kle, bus dri­ver, effec­tive August 15, 2012, due to retire­ment; Jan­ice Schu­bert, bus aide, effec­tive July 30, 2012.

• Board mem­bers accepted the res­ig­na­tion of the fol­low­ing cer­ti­fied employ­ees: Melanie House, Read­ing Tutor, Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, effec­tive June 6, 2012; Stephanie Mayer, Read­ing Tutor, Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, effec­tive July 17, 2012; Ash­ley Lang, Read­ing Tutor, Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, effec­tive August 8, 2012.

• Board mem­bers approved a 90-day pro­ba­tion­ary con­tract for the fol­low­ing clas­si­fied employ­ees for the 2012–13 school year: Jan­ice Schu­bert, bus dri­ver, step 0; Mau­ria Rader, bus dri­ver, step 5; Sally Lehman, 2 hour Food Ser­vice Worker, Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary, step 1; Tammy Tot­ten, 2 hour Food Ser­vice Worker, Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School, step 1; Cather­ine Bellows-VanHouse, 2 hour Food Ser­vice Worker, Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, step 1; Annie Funk, 3 hour Food Ser­vice Worker, Big Wal­nut High School, step 1.

• Board mem­bers approved a 90-day pro­ba­tion­ary con­tract for Dale Wolfe, 1.5 hours/day Mail Car­rier, cus­to­dial step 1, effec­tive June 6, 2012.

• Board mem­bers approved a one-year lim­ited con­tract to the fol­low­ing cer­ti­fied staff for the 2012–13 school year: Vir­ginia Craw­ford, Third Grade Teacher, Gen­eral Rose­crans Ele­men­tary, MA step 2; Laura McLough­lin, Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist, Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School, MA step 0.

• Board mem­bers rescind Motion 12–83 approved at the June 11, 2012 Reg­u­lar meeting.

• Board mem­bers approved a 90-day pro­ba­tion­ary con­tract for the fol­low­ing clas­si­fied employ­ees, effec­tive the 2012–13 school year: Mary Ann Hei­den, Hylen Soud­ers Ele­men­tary, step 12; Alice Huf­fer, Big Wal­nut Inter­me­di­ate School, step 10; Pam John­son, Big Wal­nut Ele­men­tary, step 9.

• Board mem­bers approved a rec­om­men­da­tion that Dale Springer move from a .5 main­te­nance and .5 cus­to­dian to full-time main­te­nance clas­si­fied employee, effec­tive August 14, 2012.

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing ath­letic sup­ple­men­tal con­tracts for the 2012–13 school year:

Foot­ball:

Joe Weaver, Head Coach

Mike Adams, Var­sity Assistant

Mike DeLaney, Var­sity Assistant

Brian Mackey, Var­sity Assistant

Scott Wet­zel, Var­sity Assistant

Char­lie Row­ley, Var­sity Assistant

Todd Daw­son, Assistant

Luke Moore, Assistant

Jake Williams, MS Assistant

Jason Craw­ford, MS Assistant

Scott McKen­zie, MS Assistant

Chip Klinedinst, Assistant

Zach Walker, Volunteer

Jeff Tutorow, Volunteer

Nick Kuhn, Volunteer

Jack Daniels, Volunteer

Boys Soc­cer:

Brett Weiss, Head Coach

Jason McLead, Assistant

Archie Foor, Volunteer

Milan Orr, Volunteer

Girls Soc­cer:

Jim Rear­don, Head Coach

Melissa Max­son, Assistant

Drew Pitzer, Volunteer

Sarah Uhlen­brock, Volunteer

Boys Golf:

Chuck Work­man, Head Coach

Jim Rinella, Assistant

Rich Smith, Assistant

Girls Ten­nis:

Ryan Balaz, Head Coach

Sarah Cline, Assistant

Kim White, MS Assistant

Facil­ity Manager:

Sara Wytzka, 1/3 High School

Vol­ley­ball:

Ron Lehman, Head Coach

Sum­mer Hale, Assistant

Eleni Lour­gos, MS Assistant

Jamie Zak, MS Assistant

Chris Podraza, Volunteer

Cheer­lead­ing:

Sarah Kil­dow, Head Coach

Stacey Hamil­ton, Assistant

Savan­nah Brown, MS Assistant

Brit­tany Moser, MS Assistant

Megan Everitt, Volunteer

Cross Coun­try:

Gary Bran­don, Head Coach

Dora Riggs, Assistant

Kelly Robin­son, MS Assistant

Gary Miller, Volunteer

Red Edwards, Volunteer

March­ing Band:

Kevin Jones, Volunteer

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing Extended Ser­vice con­tracts for the 2012–13 school year:

EXTENDED DAYS: Cassy Saba­tini, Direc­tor of Food Ser­vice 10 days; Ric Cav­ic­chia, Guid­ance Coun­selor, Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School 10 days; Corry Schull, Guid­ance Coun­selor, Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School 10 days; Blanda Lynam, Media Spe­cial­ist, Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School 5 days.

• Board mem­bers approved the fol­low­ing cer­ti­fied staff as Home Instruc­tion Tutor, at an hourly rate of $18, for the sum­mer of 2012 and 2012–13 school year: Jes­sica Shelton.

• Board mem­bers approved and rat­i­fied the author­ity of the Super­in­ten­dent to deter­mine and award salary increases to the Admin­is­tra­tion I and II posi­tions based on each individual’s eval­u­a­tion in accor­dance with the per­for­mance salary range approved by the Board on June 11, 2012 in Res­o­lu­tion No. 12–81. The Board reserves the right to make any salary adjust­ments as it may determine.

• Board mem­bers approved Michele Steitz as a .75 Gen­eral Sec­re­tary at Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School, 210-day con­tract, effec­tive August 13, 2012, step 14 and con­tin­u­ing con­tract will remain in effect.

• Board mem­bers approved a one year lim­ited con­tract for Kaitlin Frey, Inter­ven­tion Spe­cial­ist, Big Wal­nut High School, BA step 0, for the 2012–13 school year.

The next reg­u­larly sched­uled Big Wal­nut Local School Dis­trict Board of Edu­ca­tion meet­ing will be held at 7 p.m., Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 10, in the Big Wal­nut Mid­dle School Library.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 15 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.