Loveland City Schools Newsletter

Loveland Tiger Community,

As we start the new year, Loveland City School District is focused on the future, which includes our ongoing funding challenges. The district is currently in deficit spending, which means that we are spending more money to pay for staff and services than the federal, state, and local tax revenue that is coming in. Our Five Year Forecast shows deficit spending for the current fiscal year of $3.7 million and projects a $3.8 million deficit in the following fiscal year.

There are two ways to get out of deficit spending - either bring in more revenue or spend less. We attempted to increase revenue with a request for a 4.9 mill operating levy in November, but it was not approved by voters. Now we are in the process of identifying ways to spend less. Salaries and benefits make up 86% of our costs, so a reduction in expenses means a decrease in staff positions.

During a Board of Education meeting on December 10, I recommended that we put a hiring freeze in place for all teaching positions other than required special education services. This means that as teachers resign or retire, they will not be replaced. This will mean a change in class sizes and course offerings for the 2023-2024 school year. Our principals and our human resources director will be working to minimize the impact on the classroom. We will not know the full impact of these measures until we know which staff members may resign or retire at the end of this school year.

Cutting costs through attrition will not be enough to eliminate the deficit. Eliminating the deficit entirely would likely require eliminating dozens of positions, and as I said when discussing our last levy request, I do not believe we have dozens of positions that can be cut and maintain appropriate class sizes and safety in our buildings. Loveland City School District currently has one of the highest class size ratios in the area. The district eliminated nearly 50 positions after the 2020 levy failure, fulfilling a promised cost-cutting measure. Those cuts meant people losing their jobs and our students and their families losing high school busing, course offerings, and other support services in our buildings. Another deep round of cuts to attempt to balance the budget would mean eliminating dozens of teachers, administrators, and staff members, and would result in drastic changes to the district.

There was quite a bit of discussion about district finances during the December 10 Board Meeting. We have summarized some of the most important discussion topics in a video you can watch at this link, or you can view the entire 4-hour meeting by following this link.

The Loveland City School District will hold a Town Hall Meeting on Thursday, January 5, 2023, at 6 pm in the Media Center at Loveland Intermediate School. The purpose of this Town Hall is for district leaders to hear from our Loveland City Schools community about issues facing the school district, including the financial future of Loveland City Schools. I’ll be there, and so will two members of the Board of Education, but this will not be an official meeting of the Board. If you cannot attend, you can watch the live stream by following this link, but only in-person attendees can participate with questions or comments. A recording of the meeting will be available to watch for those who are interested.

Loveland City Schools belong to our community, and charting a course for the future is a community responsibility. I hope you take the time to participate in the discussion.

In the weeks ahead, the Treasurer and I will make a recommendation to the Board of Education about the next steps that should be taken to improve the district’s finances. It will then be up to the Board of Education to decide a course of action.

If you have questions, please contact me at: broadwmi@lovelandschools.org

I hope everyone had a great Winter Break, and we can’t wait to see students back in the building on Tuesday.

Go Tigers!

Mike Broadwater

Superintendent

Loveland City Schools

Email: setteran@lovelandschools.org
Website: www.lovelandschools.org
Location: 757 S Lebanon Rd, Loveland, OH, USA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lovelandcityschools/
Twitter: @LovelandTigers