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This part is simple: for an organization to continue to exist, it must take in at least as much cash as it spends. As expenses grow, the income must grow with it. So in the Hilliard City School District, where does the money come from, and where does it go? Expenses: 87% of the money spent to operate our school district is used to pay the salaries and benefits of the faculty, staff and administrators. In 2006, the total expense for salaries and benefits was $114 million dollars, according to the financial projections our treasurer is required to submit to the Ohio Board of Education. This number is expected to grow to $164 million by 2011, an increase of $50 million in five years, and will keep increasing at a rate of 6% or more each year with routine salary and benefit increases. Whatever you might think about where the money goes, this is it. Everything else is relatively insignificant. Revenue: Contrary to the beliefs of many, the property taxes paid by the owners of a new house built in our community are not enough to fund the cost of educating the kids who live there (see what the Buckeye Association of School Administrators has to say about this). For many years, the Hilliard City School District has been funded in approximately equal shares by three sources: 1) local residential property owners; 2) local business taxes; and, 3) State Aid provided by the State of Ohio. These proportions have been changing for the past decade. New dwellings have been built in the school district by the thousands. Many of those homes bring with them school age children who need to be housed in classrooms and educated by teachers. This has shown up in the growth of our student population from 10,734 in 1997 to over 15,000 currently. New businesses have not been established in our community at the same rate. While there have been some significant wins in the past few years, such as BMW Financial, we must remember that large employers such as CompuServe, Dana and Gates-McDonald have ceased operations in Hilliard over the same period. In fact, of the ten "Principal Employers" of 1997 listed in the school district's 2006 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (page 119), only one is still on the list for 2006 - Boehringer Ingelheim Roxanne Labs. Guess who is the now the largest employer in the school district -- the school district itself with 2,315 people on staff! The State of Ohio has not been holding up its third of the burden either. Under both Governor Taft and Governor Strickland, the amount of state money allocated to Hilliard City Schools has been frozen at $36.8 million, regardless of the growth. The consequence is that every new dollar of revenue required to fund the growth in enrollment must come from the existing homeowners and businesses in the School District.
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