DAYTON — The scourge of foreclosures, unemployment and unpaid property taxes is decimating area school budgets, and if the tax base continues to erode, Dayton’s school treasurer says the district could face a state takover within two years.

A Daily News examination found more than $87 million in unpaid property taxes were owed in Montgomery County at the end of June. About $59 million — two thirds of all the delinquent taxes owed in the county — were on real estate in the Dayton Public Schools district.

In addition to the schools, those delinquencies hit a broad spectrum of local governments, libraries and countywide agencies. The Human Services Levy and Sinclair Community College are among those feeling the pinch.

But the lost tax revenue is most noticeable in the Dayton school district, where property taxes make up nearly half the district’s general fund revenue.

Almost unbelievably, DPS receives less property tax revenue now than it did before its 4.9-mill operating levy passed in November 2008. The district lost about $19 million from unpaid taxes last year, and district treasurer Stan Lucas expects that figure to rise to more than $20 million this year.

Unless the outlook improves, Lucas warned that Dayton could join the nine other Ohio school districts currently in fiscal emergency, a designation that would lead to steep cuts in non-mandatory educational programs and put popular programs such as the Stivers School for the Arts at risk.

The Jefferson Twp. Local School District is already in fiscal emergency, which occurs when an operating deficit exceeds 15 percent of a school district’s general fund revenue.

DPS expects to have to make another $12 million to $15 million budget cuts next year, which comes on top of the $39 million that’s been cut since 2008, Lucas said. Some 600 staff members were let go, and another 100 could be gone by next year.

“I have never seen anything like this,” Lucas said. “There will soon be a moment we are at an absolute impasse — where we can’t cut any more. I can get us through this year, that’s all I can say right now.”