The public will have the opportunity to ask questions during the meeting in the Butler High School Performing Arts Theater, 600 S. Dixie Drive. The board’s regularly scheduled meeting will follow at 7:45 p.m.
“We want to make sure people are well aware of what the financial situation is,” Reiff said.
Feb. 6 is the filing deadline for school districts to place issues on the May ballot.
District officials said passage of a May levy could restore some programs that are slated to be cut.
The district must identify $7.4 million in cuts for 2013-14, which include an additional $3.9 million because the recent levy failed. Officials are waiting to outline the specifics of those reductions until after Gov. John Kasich comes out with his school funding model and proposed budget in the coming weeks.
Officials said before the last election that levy failure would result in elimination of up to 60 teachers, support staff and administration positions. Some student programs would be eliminated, compensation and benefits reduced and more cuts made to athletics, district officials said.
Vandalia-Butler voters in November rejected a 6.99-mill operating and permanent improvement levy, which would have generated about $3.9 million annually. Two earlier levies were defeated in November 2011 and August 2012.
Starting next school year, the district will be operating on a $27 million budget. School leaders say that another $2 million drop would put the district at state minimums – those courses the state requires students to have to graduate.
“State minimums are the bare minimums. They are not college admission requirements,” Treasurer Dan Schall said. “If we drop to state minimums, a Butler High School degree will not be enough to get our students into many four-year colleges and universities.”
Butler Twp. resident Rene Oberer views that as scare tactics.
Oberer — spokeswoman for the Vandalia-Butler Homeowners for Fair Taxation, a political action committee that opposed the last levy — wants the district to continue to cut administrative and other costs before asking the taxpayers for more money.
“We can’t afford it so your job is to educate the children, do the best job that you can with what we have available and find a way,” she said.
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