State funding policies raise questions for Revere; school levy to be postponed
by Sheldon Ocker
July 21 school board meeting
Tom Burke, a parent in the Revere School District, questioned Superintendent Matt Montgomery and the Revere School Board about how the state’s reduction in public school funding will affect the Revere system.
Initially, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s plan to minimize the state’s loss of revenue lopped $821,000 from Revere’s budget for fiscal year 2019-2020, which ended June 30.
The legislature restored $580,000, but Montgomery still had to deal with a shortfall of about $240,000.
Moreover, because of COVID-19’s effect on state revenues, the legislature is expected to reduce school funding for the 2020-2021 school year.
“Moving forward, we’ll see what the state decides to cut for the following school year,” Montgomery said.
The uncertainty of how much Revere’s revenue will suffer in the current fiscal school year is one problem. Montgomery’s priority has concerned staffing.
“We didn’t look to reduce staff if we didn’t have to,” he said.
Consequently, when the state restored $580,000 to the district, Montgomery decided to bring back two staff positions that had been eliminated.
“One was the middle school assistant principal,” Montgomery said, “and the second was a school psychologist that was vacated due to retirement.”
How did the superintendent settle on those positions? His priority was to restore the jobs of those who impacted the greatest number of students.
One of two teachers in the third-grade gifted learning program was let go.
“We did that because we didn’t know what will happen next year,” he said.
The disastrous effect of COVID-19 on the state’s economy has altered Revere’s plan to put an operating levy on the ballot.
“We will weigh when we will be going to the voters for additional funds,” Montgomery said, explaining that the last time the district went to voters with an operating levy was 2011. The commitment was made by a past administration and a prior board that the district would not ask for new funds for seven to nine or seven to 10 years, depending on who you speak to [Montgomery was not superintendent at the time].
“To be at the 10-year mark, we would have to be in the black through 2021,” he said. “The board has been true to that commitment. The plan was to ask for new money from the voters in the fall of 2021, is where we were leaning.”
That plan has changed.
“We are trying to postpone the request for new money at this time, because we do not believe it is the appropriate timing to go to our community and ask for new money, in spite of the fact we have been true to our commitment,” Montgomery said. “We will try to push that from 2021 to 2022.”
To stretch Revere’s income further, Montgomery said, “Since March, we froze the budgets, and we saved close to a million dollars by that decision.”
Another resident of the district, Carrie Diulus, who identified herself as a surgeon who ministers to COVID-19, told the board about the benefits of face shields.
“When we had exposures, people who had eye shields or face shields in addition to masks were considered not exposed,” she said. “There are a lot of teachers I’m concerned about in the district. It would be catastrophic to lose quality teachers.”
Montgomery said the district has ordered 500 face shields, which are scheduled to arrive before the start of the school year.
Construction update
Montgomery told the board that demolition of the old Revere High is continuing, and that “there will be bricks available to the public starting in the middle of next week; we will put out notifications of when and where to collect those.”
There will be no charge for the bricks, “and when one pile gets empty, we will refill it,” he said.
