Mount Healthy City Schools should cut 28 more teachers, consider pay-to-play, auditor says

An Ohio school district hired about two dozen teachers three years ago using its pandemic relief funds to address significant learning loss among the district’s children. Now the state says that decision is part of the reason Mount Healthy City Schools is heading toward a deficit of more than $90 million by 2028.

It may be time for Mount Healthy Schools to partner with other districts, Ohio Auditor Keith Faber said in a news release Thursday. The district’s students and their families “are not well served,” he said.

As of mid-May, Mount Healthy City Schools was the only school district in Ohio in a financial emergency, the most severe phase of a school system’s financial woes. Under this designation, the auditor assembles a team to determine budget cuts and even consider removing a district’s superintendent or treasurer.

More: Southwest Ohio schools received $745 million in pandemic relief funds. Did they spend it all?

The district came under public scrutiny in March when the school board voted to cut 96 full-time employees: six exempt employees, nine administrators, 11 substitutes and 70 teachers.

The school district previously told The Enquirer that 80 full-time employees would be cut, but 96 is the updated number, according to Matt Eiselstein, a spokesman for the Ohio Auditor’s Office.

The district had used federal COVID-19 pandemic relief funds to hire two dozen new teachers who would help address pandemic-related learning loss. These hires have allowed the student-teacher ratio in some elementary grades to be as low as 9 to 1.

Hiring these teachers was not the problem, but the district did so “without a strategic plan to maintain or eliminate these teaching positions as funding expired,” according to the audit.

Today, the district faces a deficit of more than $7.4 million this year, which is expected to reach more than $90 million by 2028.

Firing 98 teachers and making students pay for sports may be necessary

The auditor recommended cutting 98 full-time teachers, instead of the 70 the district voted for. Laying off 98 full-time teachers would save the district about $8.6 million, according to the auditor’s report.

This is separate from recommendations to lay off at least 36 non-teaching staff, bringing the total number of recommended full-time staff cuts to 134.

The auditor also recommended cutting funding for student extracurricular activities.

To close that deficit, the school district plans to charge each student $50 to participate in their first sport and $25 for each additional sport, according to a response to the district’s audit.

Another recommendation from the auditor: eliminate six bus lines that serve the school district, which would save about $118,000.

Even if the Mount Healthy district follows all 19 recommendations, Eiselstein said, there will still be a deficit.

How did it happen?

Inaccurate accounting and forecasting within the Mount Healthy City School District contributed to what the auditor called a “declining financial condition.”

“Their five-year forecasts were inaccurate in recent years, coupled with accounting errors that emerged this year, which accelerated the deterioration of their public finances,” Eiselstein said.

The Enquirer contacted Mount Healthy City School District Superintendent Valerie Hawkins and Charles J. Ogdan, assistant superintendent for human resources and operations, for comment. They were unable to respond in time for publication.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cutting teachers and charging students for needed sports at Mt. Healthy City Schools