July, 2006

The dirt is flying around what will become the new Kohl’s.  Ground will be broken shortly on the new Menard’s.  Whirlpool is adding 550 new jobs.  Marion’s new intermodal rail/truck service is growing daily at the Marion Industrial Center.  New condos and apartments are popping up all over town.  All rosy signs for our community.

And yet…slowly, quietly, they’re gone.  My favorite pooch (next to my own) no longer walks down my street.  Her owner has moved 30 miles south.  The exuberant jumps and barks happen in another neighborhood now.  The chats I had with her owner have ended. 

Two other friends will be leaving soon.  They haven’t broadcast the news.  But their houses will soon be on the market and they’ll move by fall.  Their tenures on civic boards and committees will cease.  Their church contributions will go into another plate in another town—one with schools that aren’t on the financial brink.

Also gone now is instrumental music in Marion elementary schools.  That means kids arriving at middle school will start from scratch with less time to develop musical skills before entering high school.  What will it mean for what has been an outstanding music program in Marion City Schools? 

I recently attended yet another community meeting on the financial situation at the Marion City Schools.  Three new board members were there.  But the story was the same.  Marion City Schools are on fiscal watch, soon headed for fiscal emergency without additional local support.  It not only threatens the quality of education here, but this crisis threatens the community itself.  In fact, as my departing friends illustrate, the threat is now becoming a reality. 

Communities (unless they’re Pompeii, Italy) don’t die cataclysmically.  They fray.  Like old rugs or sweaters, they disintegrate slowly until, one day, they’re simply not fit for their intended purpose any longer.  Conversely, communities grow in the same way, piece by piece.  A new road here, a new house there, a new employer comes to town, Panera Bread says they’re building a new store--and, bang, the realization hits that, yes, we’re growing.

Marion, I think, is in that precarious position, balanced between decline and growth.  We could go either way.  We’re seeing new and different employment opportunities, new retail, new housing.  And yet, those trends could halt if a school crisis moves people, their talents and their money out of the community.

Some facts:  Local support of Marion City Schools is at one fourth or less of the schools’ total budget.  In other districts in the county, it ranges between thirty-five and fifty percent.  Among peer districts around the state, local support averages 45.5 percent.  Had Marion’s local support been 30 percent or higher, instead of 25 percent, the schools would be above water at least through 2010.  It’s not that cuts haven’t been made.  Over 140 staff positions have been cut in the last four years.  A third of administrators are gone.  Marion spends $1,120 less per student than the state average. Teacher salaries are 4.6 percent below the state average.  The cost of administration is 25 percent below the state average.  We have fewer employees in most every category than similar districts.  Over $19 million in cuts have been made in the last four years.  To say there haven’t been substantial reductions is to ignore the facts.

So why not let the state take over and bail us out?  Because there is no pot of gold at the end of that rainbow.  If the City Schools fall into fiscal emergency, Phil Binkley, a consultant for the Ohio Department of Education could very well chair the commission mandated to oversee board decisions.  He’s done it in six other districts.  He told the crowd at the latest information meeting that if the state advances the schools some money, it will simply be deducted from the next year’s state support.  No free ride.  No magic bailout.  “Communities are the ones who determine what their district looks like,” he said unequivocally.  “The way you do that is at the ballot box.  If sports are not important, if class size is not important, if bussing, or advanced courses, or extra curriculars are not important, that’s your prerogative,” said Binkley.  “The ultimate decision rests with you.”