Superintendent to be hired
The Northmont board of education Monday night is scheduled to vote on a successor to Superintendent Sarah Zatik.
The board is set to vote on Anthony R. Thomas. If approved, Thomas is expected to begin Aug. 1. Zatik is scheduled to retire Aug. 1 after six years as superintendent.
The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Northmont Middle School, 4810 National Road.
Northmont City School District voters are being asked Tuesday to approve a 5.9-mill, five-year operating levy to lessen the amount of budget cuts this fall.
Issue 19 seeks new millage and would cost the owner of a home valued at $100,000 about $206 a year, generating about $3.5 million annually, according to the Montgomery County Auditor’s Office.
Voter support of the levy will still require budget cuts, Superintendent Sarah Zatik has said. Without a levy victory, the district will have to make $4.2 million in cuts for the 2016-17 school year, said Board of Education President Linda Blum.
Those cuts would account for about 8 percent of district revenues and “will be felt in classroom sizes, in technology, in attention given to students,” she said. “It’s a critical time for Northmont.”
No group has registered in opposition of the issue, according to the county board of elections.
The school district that serves Clayton, Englewood, Phillipsburg and Union has made budget cuts in recent years and is facing a deficit, said district Treasurer/CFO Ann Bernardo.
The district’s expenses outpaced revenues this school year by about $3.3 million, she said. Projections for 2016-17 calling for $58.4 million in expenses show a $6 million shortfall while 2017-18 figures put the district at more than $9 million in the red, Bernardo said.
Property revaluations have cost the district $1.5 million in recent years and $500,000 was trimmed this year, Zatik has said.
The district is one of three dozen in the state that – in a largely symbolic move - have sent invoices to the state education department asking for the return of millions of “lost” dollars that they say improperly went to fund charter schools.
Northmont’s school board passed a resolution this school year saying the district “lost a total of $430,955 local funding to charter schools” just last year, criticizing charters for “low academic performance … fraud and corruption.”
The district has reduced staff, implemented salary freezes, increased contributions to insurance plans and cut back on textbook purchases, officials said.
“Over the years we’ve watched our dollars closely,” Blum said. “We’ve cut back as much as we can. We are very sensitive to our taxpayers getting a huge bang for their buck here in Northmont, and we’re real good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars. However, we have to pay our bills.”
Northmont voters overwhelmingly supported a November 2014 renewal of a 9-mill operating levy. Three years earlier voters approved a 5.9-mill combined bond issue and permanent improvement levy, according to the county board of elections. That gave the district funds to build a new high school and an early childhood learning center.
In November 2010 voters strongly approved a 9-mill replacement levy. Blum said she is hopeful that type of support will be evident when results come in Tuesday, but is looking at various possibilities should the levy fail.
“I am anticipating that we’ll try to be as creative as we can and keep our classrooms intact,” she said. “But when 80 to 85 percent of your budget is in people, it gets hard to find other places to cut.”
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