Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Thursday, December 7, 2006
Tax windfall means half as many job cuts
Dayton Public Schools will get $3.8 million from the sale of delinquent tax liens. They were hoping for anywhere from $2 to $4 million but there was nearly as good a chance that there could have been no bidders for the liens and the district would have gotten nothing. The good thing about that is school officials didn’t count on any money from the sale, so the entire windfall can put put toward reducing the $9.4 million in cuts planned for January.
And that’s just what the district will do.
Up to 135 job cuts were part of the January cost savings plan. Superintendent Percy Mack said at Thursday’s press conference that he thought between this new money and revisions to the plan that have been in the works, about half those jobs could be saved. Exactly how many of the 58 teachers due to be laid off would be saved he didn’t say, but Mack did say the priority will be on maintaining the academic programs first.
He would not go all the way to promising all the threatened teachers and adjuncts would be saved.
We’ll have more on this and the new board member — Ronald Jackson — in Friday’s Dayton Daily News.
UPDATE: Here’s today’s story on the tax lien sale and here’s the story on Ron Jackson, who will be appointed to the board Tuesday.
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Breaking News on school cuts, board member
Dayton Public Schools has planned a 4:30 press conference with Montgomery County Treasurer Hugh Quill to announce that the district will receive a multi-million dollar windfall from last month’s sale of delinquent tax liens. This is expected to have an impact on the plan for $9.4 million in cuts the board has planned for January.
Oh, and we have a new board member. And it’s not David Bohardt.
First the cash windfall. We’ll find out in a couple hours exactly how much the district is getting, but I think it’s safe to say it will be less than the $6 million it received last year when Quill’s office sold liens but more than the $2 million school officials hoped get from this year’s sale.
Here’s the deal with the liens. There are hundreds of property owners in the city who are delinquent on their property taxes. The county treasurer in the past has published lists of the worst offenders in hopes of shaming them into paying up. But last year, Quill’s office began making use of a state law that allowed it to sell this bad debt.
This works much like bill collectors who buy old debts from creditors. Companies, usually big banks, bid on the debt and then go after the debtors. Anything they collect they can keep. In the case of liens, the collectors can add a surcharge. The prospect of liens being sold also scares some delinquent property owners into paying their bills, which brings in more money, too. Most local property taxes go directly to schools. So its not an exaggeration to say school districts love Quill for this program.
So what will Dayton do with a few million bucks? Board President Gail Littlejohn said the money will be used to further reduce the number of layoffs and other cuts planned for January. Superintendent Percy Mack and his team have been working for weeks on a way to reduce the number of cuts anyway. So this new money raises the prospect that perhaps the cuts could be significantly reduced when combined with the changes that already were coming.
Littlejohn confirmed that there would be fewer cuts but she could not yet say how much the cuts would be reduced and what programs and positions would be saved.
Now onto the new board member. It is Ronald Jackson, a financial adviser with AXA Advisors and an active parent with two children attending Valarie Elementary School. Jackson will be sworn in on Tuesday.
Littlejohn said there were four strong candidates — Jackson, former mayoral candidate David Bohardt, attorney Drew Fuller and Nancy Nerny, a retired teacher. Any of them would have added helpful perspective to the board, she said.
It sounded like the decision came down to Bohardt and Jackson. Littlejohn said the board liked Jackson best because of his financial background and involvement with his school’s parent group but mostly because of his long term work with youth. She said Jackson puts on programs for youth to teach them about money and investing.
She said Bohardt interviewed well and that the board was impressed by his commitment to strong public schools. She said they considered his political and community connections a plus but ultimately decided Jackson’s skills were a better fit for the board’s needs.
I’ll have more on both these developments certainly in tomorrow’s paper and perhaps on the blog later today if I get a chance.
Also, coming Saturday here at Get on the Bus I’ll be posting some information from Dayton Public Schools that I think will be of high interest to may readers. So check back for a special post on Saturday.
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