(The Center Square) – For the second time in less than a year, Ohio Auditor Keith Faber placed a school district under fiscal emergency, forcing the system to fall under a financial planning and supervision commission.
Trimble Local School District in southeast Ohio asked the state for help in early January when it projected a $1.6 million operating deficit. An analysis from the Auditor of State’s Local Government Services Section put the deficit at $2.99 million.
The state auditor declares a school district in fiscal emergency when its operating deficit exceeds 15% of the district’s general fund revenue for the preceding year.
Trimble’s deficit is 24% of last year’s revenues.
Also, fiscal emergency comes when voters have not passed a levy to raise enough additional money in the last fiscal year to cover the deficit. Trimble last attempted to pass a levy in November 2023, when voters rejected it.
Trimble now falls under a five-member financial planning and supervision commission. The local school board and community have to come up with a plan within 120 days of the commission’s first meeting to end the fiscal emergency.
In April 2024, Faber also placed Mt. Health City Schools in Cincinnati under fiscal emergency.
As previously reported by The Center Square, continued hiring and millions in building projects pushed Mt. Healthy to a financial cliff, including a projected $90 million deficit by 2028, Faber said.
Faber recommended Mt. Health join another district.
An audit said Mt. Healthy hired dozens of new teachers and staff and advanced $18 million in building projects without formal plans or funding to sustain operations.
The report said the district’s spending on salaries and wages grew by nearly $9 million in fiscal year 2024 from 2021, mostly due to an influx of one-time federal COVID-19 money.
Mt. Health voters rejected a tax levy in November, and reports say it expects to have a $35 million deficit by the end of this fiscal year.
