By Amantha Garpiel
For Miami Valley Today
TIPP CITY — The Tipp City Board of Education (BOE) voted to suspend five school district personnel contracts and alluded to a necessary larger reduction in force for the district.
Before unanimously voting to suspend five contracts, the board yielded the floor to Board President Amber Drum.
“We recognize that with this decision we must be absolutely clear about the details… This decision has not been easy for anyone, but it must be done to correct our current and future district financial situation,” said Drum.
She continued, “Even though we passed a levy for continual improvements and a new building bond, those two accounts are legally allocated for improvements and a new building and cannot be used for salaries. … if we do not do to right-sizing now, it will result in a long-term, compounding financial crisis based on salary raises and an increase in benefit costs. … District leadership has looked at other options and areas to cut, but when we examined the numbers, it was determined that right-sizing is our district’s only option to get out of the deficit.”
“The number of reductions break down to approximately 1.5 positions at each grade level,” Drum concluded.
Following her statements, the board approved the suspension of the following contracts:
• Mary Hadden — Administrative assistant to the attendance office;
• Wendy Koogler — Accounts payable specialist;
• Trinity Stevens — Second shift maintenance/custodian;
• Chelsea Syphrit — Administrative assistant for the BOE;
• Dr. Lisa Tuttle-Huff – director of human resources;
Though it was not on the agenda of the May 21 meeting, many community members came to speak on the impending reduction in the district’s teaching force.
Brenda Mahaney, a member of the Tipp City Education Association, was the first to speak on the issue.
Mahaney raised concerns regarding how the reduction of force list, naming individuals whose contracts are being terminated, was finalized without first being presented to the BOE.
She also noted that the newest five-year forecast shows the district maintaining a positive cash balance until the fifth year and that the projected deficit is not as deep as it was originally projected to be. She shared the opinion that the new forecast gives the district time to consider and test out cutting expenditures in other categories of the budget before reducing the workforce in the district.
Next to discuss the issue of reduction in force was Cassie Zerkle.
Zerkle noted the timing of the RIF “feels deceitful” and that voters in the community might have thought differently on passing the new building bond had the possibility of an RIF been brought up prior to the bond issue.
“A nice new building is nothing without a great staff and community to fill it,” said Zerkle.
On the increase in class sizes that would come as a result of the RIF, Zerkle said, “Even the best educators cannot accommodate for the volume of chaos a large classroom holds.”
The writer is a regular contributor to Miami Valley Today.
