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WARREN -- Warren City School District Treasurer Karen Sciortino highlighted the importance of the funding generated by a levy that voters will choose whether to renew in the March 19 election.
The levy, which will read as 12.5-mills on the ballot, actually would be 9.65 mills because of recent property revaluations. It would generate $3,918,802 annually if approved.
During Tuesday's board of education meeting, Sciortino said if voters do not renew the emergency levy, the district could be in deficit spending by fiscal year 2026.
Sciortino said that potential trend could continue later into the decade depending on a number of factors.
"Moving out, as we look at the forecast all the way out into fiscal year 2028, we are not allowed to forecast for levy renewals, so they're not included in our revenues, with that, we are looking in 2028 without our emergency levy renewals and without making any adjustments to what we're currently operating at, a $6 million deficit in spending," Sciortino said.
Superintendent Steve Chiaro said the district has not experienced deficit spending since 2013.
He said at the time, the district focused on rightsizing staffing to avoid a deficit.
"We have continued to do that work in order to ensure, over the last decade, that we were not deficit spending," Chiaro said.
Chiaro said such work also has given the district the opportunity to build its $36.1 million wellness / recreation center without any additional taxes.
But, with dollars that were available during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as other funding, Chiaro said it is important to separate the wellness center project from the renewal levy.
"There needs to be a real delineation that the work that has been going on the last several years with the student recreation and wellness center is totally different from the renewal levy that is coming up," Chiaro said. "They are not the same process. They're two different things. The student recreation and wellness center has been planned for and budgeted through the years. That has been without dipping into deficit spending. Though, without the renewal levy, it can be factually stated, that through the forecasting, we are looking at deficit spending if the levy does not get approved."
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