Centerville school officials outline cost-cutting efforts, cite funding needs

Treasurer Laura Sauber said about 77% of Centerville schools’ revenue comes from taxes from local levies, which she said is “a major source of school funding for most districts in Ohio.”

“State funding and local taxes are how schools generate the revenue,” Sauber said. “These revenues are used to support the day-to-day operating costs of the district. What those operating costs are, are for things like the teachers in the classrooms and classroom supplies, our buses on the road, all the repairs to those buses, our utilities, our custodial supplies.

“All of those things are paid for by these two sources of revenue: state funding and (local) tax revenue.”

Centerville-Washington Twp. voters in November 2023 rejected a levy request for 5.9 mills that would have raised $12.9 million per year to fund school district operations and permanent improvements. Then, in March 2024, voters rejected a request for a 3.9-mill operating levy that would have raised $11.2 million per year.

Jackie Price, a Washington Twp. resident for the last 15 years and a parent of a seventh-grader, said she attended the forum to stay informed.

“I just appreciate the transparency and the opportunity to get feedback from the community and the opportunity to ask questions,” Price said following the event. “I think that’s always important when communities are needing to make decisions about how to move forward, to have community input.”

Wesney said Centerville City Schools includes nearly 8,400 students with about 1,100 employees.

“It’s a big operation here in our community (and) like any large operation, it costs to keep our schools up and running and operating,” he said. “We need staff for our schools that are appropriately trained and to keep and manage reasonable class sizes.”

Wesney said many operating supplies the schools use have become more expensive due to inflation. He added that the district is dealing with aging school facilities, with the average age at 60 years and one at the century mark.

“At some point as a community, we’ve got to find a way to come together long-term and how we’re going to address the needs of our facilities,” Wesney said.

After the two levy rejections, the district implemented several cost-saving measures, including a reduction in force that has included 48 positions, most of them via retirements or resignations.

If voters don’t approve a new tax levy in November, the earliest the district could see increased local tax revenue would be early 2026.

“I think that’s important for our community to know and understand,” Wesney said. “This means we’d be faced with trying to save additional money wherever we can, as well as coming up with additional reductions for the board to review and to look at and approve. ... Obviously when you’re making staff reductions, we are looking at larger class sizes at all levels of our operation, reductions in the types of programs that we can offer,” he said.

Cuts in the past have included some fine arts programs, language classes, career education programs and electives.

Wesney said the sooner Centerville City Schools can secure funding, the sooner it can better prepare for and look at long-term, future initiatives.

“So we want our community to be involved, that’s why we are having these meetings and we want you to be involved in how we move the district forward to address some of our concerns, not only from a funding (perspective), but also looking at our facilities in the future,” he said.

Opportunities for approval of levy resolutions are July 15, July 22 or during a special meeting, Wesney said.

During a question-and-answer session that followed the presentation, Centerville resident David Cobb voiced his support for the district to pursue getting a levy approved.

“Fact is that our schools, our students, our communities are important things and they need the money that they need,” Cobb said. “If that means that we get smacked in the face a few times and we feel bad because we lost a couple of elections, I’m OK with that because I know it’s much more important that we provide education for our students, it’s much more important that we support our community, and we support our community’s families.”

“We need to lose until we win, and hopefully we will win soon.”

Centerville schools community forum: 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Centerville High School Theatre, 500 E. Franklin St. (Enter through the front entrance.)

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