New DPS superintendent faces shrinking resources

Deputy superintendent Lori Ward district veteran, business chief

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By Dave Larsen, Staff Writers Updated 10:20 PM Wednesday, March 24, 2010

DAYTON — Lori Ward’s biggest challenge as the next superintendent of Dayton Public Schools, the area’s largest school district, involves money and the dwindling supply of it, said Dayton school board President Jeffrey J. Mims Jr.

Ward’s challenge is to “continue to move the district forward at the rate that we have been with shrinking resources,” Mims said Wednesday, March 24, shortly after Ward was introduced as the person who will succeed outgoing Superintendent Kurt Stanic on July 1. Ward currently is Stanic’s second in command.

A new operating levy approved in November 2008 was supposed to generate $9.3 million a year, but is only generating $4 million because of home foreclosures and delinquent property taxes, Mims said.

He said the district also will lose $600,000 to $700,000 in tax revenue annually from the sale of the former NCR Corp. world headquarters to the University of Dayton, a nonprofit institution.

Ward, 52, acknowledged Wednesday “we have a tough road ahead of us.”

“We have to protect classroom instruction as much as possible, which means that business operations have to become more efficient,” she said. “We’re trying to design an organization, we trying to be proactive, but we have to really be affordable and sustainable.”

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