By Krystal Smalley
ksmalley@wbcowqel.com
Superintendent Kevin Kimmel made sure to point out how important it was for community members to show up to the community forums. After all, it’s those community members who help shape the schools.
The Bucyrus City Schools held its annual State of the Schools address Monday night. One of the first things Kimmel did was highlight changes brought to the schools because of the community forums. He pointed to the creation of the Educational Options Program, school safety, the student dress code and the realignment of the buildings as just some of the things that community members helped shape.
“There’s been issues where we’ve needed to get feedback from the community and that’s why these type of forums are so critical that your voice is definitely needed and appreciated in making these decisions in the district,” said Kimmel said to the small crowd assembled.
A financial update was also provided during the State of Schools address and Treasurer Ryan Cook did not have a lot of good news to spread.
“The finances have been tough not just for the Bucyrus City Schools but also districts across the state of Ohio,” explained Kimmel.
Cook said back in 2011, the district’s expenditures began to outweigh its revenue and it started dipping into its reserves. “We’ve done a fairly good job at this point of bringing that under control, if you will,” said Cook.
In fiscal year 2012 the district had a deficit of $1.2 million while they closed the books this past year with negative $321,000.
“So we’re beginning to walk that down,” explained Cook. “There’s a lot of work to do. There’s a lot of things that are outside of our control; we have a lot of expenses.”
Though Cook said he could not give any hard numbers from the state budget because it is still in flux, he feels cautiously optimistic. “I think the budget will help us, I just don’t know to what extent,” he said.
The district remains heavily reliant on the state for revenue with almost 67 percent of the revenue coming from the state. “If they make a negative, it hits us hard. If they make a positive change, it can have a positive impact. I believe there’s going to be some positive impacts we just don’t know the overall dollar amounts yet,” said Cook.
Cook highlighted some of the challenges to the district’s operating revenue, which included losing $265,000 a year from the elimination of the Tangible Personal Property, cutting of the federal stimulus money, and casino revenues coming in lower than estimated.
“We have to be prudent, we have to be fiscally responsible and move forward and pay attention to the bottom line,” said Cook.
“Even with the 2011 levy renewed as continuing, we’re still deficit spending,” said Cook as he wrapped up for the night. ‘”This is one that I welcome anyone in the community to be involved in. . . We’re open to any and all ideas, ways we can try to save money, become fiscally responsible.”
Another area Kimmel stressed was school safety. The district has teamed with the Bucyrus Police Department to have a police sub-station located in the high school office. Officer Tom Walker was on hand to explain more about the collaboration.
“School security has always been an issue that has been very important, at least I believe, in the city of Bucyrus,” said Walker, who had worked with school administrators three years previously as a school resource officer. “It’s something I think that we all believe your children should feel comfortable and secure when they come in to a school so they’re free to learn and not worry about what’s going to happen.”
Walker said they are trying to increase officer presence inside the school. Within the next couple of weeks, Bucyrus police officers will be able to come in and spend time in the building doing reports and working closely with the school faculty and getting to know the students better.
“Big advantages to that obviously is that having an officer inside the school tend to deter crime more often than not,” said Walker. “It also gives the students an opportunity to have an officer accessible to them if they find out anything.”
Walker said that availability helps build a trust with the students and allows them to pass along information first hand. “So we can start taking care of security issues inside the school before they happen as waiting to react afterwards,” explained Walker.
Kimmel added that they will be looking for additional funding outside of school and city budgets in order to have a resource officer on hand full time.
Also discussed were educational options available to high school students and a brief overview of the district’s report card. School administrators later broke the crowd up into groups and discussed with them concerns the community has about the district.