CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A handful of county school districts in West Virginia are facing serious struggles financially to begin the calendar year.
Uriah Cummings, school financial operations officer for the state Department of Education, says his team has needed to step in.
“Currently, we have somewhere around five or so districts financially that we kind of have our eye on and we’re working with directly,” Cummings said. “We’re helping them work through personnel decision making and things of that nature, which ultimately make up the bulk of a county’s budget.”
Cummings says that number could have been higher if not for Covid funds, but those are quickly expiring.
“Maybe in the past even prior to Covid that number would have been a little bit higher, but Covid dollars have helped in some capacity support the general funds of our school districts. Now we’re coming off of Covid and we’re seeing that impact directly,” he said.
Cummings talked about the financial issues on MetroNews Talkline Wednesday, a day after Delegate Pat McGeehan addressed issues in his area of Hancock County.
Because of poor bookkeeping by the district’s chief financial officer, the county is in such a hole that making the payroll for February 1 is in legitimate jeopardy. McGeehan called it “gross incompetence.”
Cummings says mismanagement like what’s gone on in Hancock County should never happen.
“If I was the individual who was responsible for overseeing the fiscal function of that school district and to get to that point, it would cause me to lose sleep at night,” he said. “We’re talking about multi-million dollar budgets here and to potentially be up against it and not be able to pay hundreds of employees in a school district, it would make me sick.”
For the majority of counties under financial strain, the continued decline in enrollment is the main issue. As students leave the county or parents choose to pull their children out of the public school system, less dollars from the school aid formula goes to that county.
“We’re in the neighborhood of about a 16,000 (student) decline over a five-year period and 39,000 over a 10-year period,” Cummings said. “When you talk about that magnitude of decline of almost 15 percent over a 10-year period, it’s difficult to keep up with.”
Cummings reported that, on average, state school buildings are only half utilized.
Data also shows that 13 West Virginia counties do not have an excess levy and of those counties, 1,800 teachers in total are not funded with the school aid formula. In some cases, counties are eating into past year balances that have been built up and don’t have much more than $1 million cash on hand.
“If we have a $1 million cash on hand, one payroll would eat up all that money and then there goes your cash flow and it’s completely depleted,” Cummings said. “It’s absolutely something that is scary to think about.”