There remains four months before the Warren County School District has to have a budget on the books for 2024-2025.

With significant turnover as a result of the most recent election, there’s a learning curve to work through before those decisions can be made.

That effort continued this week with a discussion about property tax millage rates and staffing during committee meetings this week.

Director of Business Services Jim Grosch told the board that the assessed value of all property in Warren County is decreasing by $1.12 million in this budget cycle.

“Without the board doing anything,” he said, “We’re already (losing) $64,000 out of our budget.”

Grosch said that the maximum property tax increase the board can implement in this cycle would generate $1.88 million, or $128.98 for a home with an assessed value of $30,000. A one mill increase would raise approximately $388,000.

He added that the value of a one mill increase has fallen in recent years from $400,000 to $420,000 down to that $388,000 amount.

Board President Paul Mangione said that decline is “why it’s so imperative we fight for reassessment,” he said, calling it a “prime example of why it was needed so bad.”

“We will be coming back with budgets,” Grosch told the board. “This is one of the levers the board can use to balance the budget.”

He said that the discussion would really ramp up in April when he said there would be a need for special budget discussion sessions.

On the staffing side, Board member John Wortman said the board recently received an email on class size.

“Staffing is always part of the budget process,” Mangione said.

“We’re going to be bringing as part of budget sessions… that type of information to you,” Gary Weber, who will take over as superintendent in the coming days. “Where it becomes difficult, when you get into actual scheduling, what we’re going to bring you are the numbers as we see them. They’re all over the place.”

He said the board would be “able to have some control” over the class size issue when prioritizing during the budget process.

Superintendent Amy Stewart reminded the board that federal ESSER dollars were used to lower class size during the pandemic.

“All those have to go away,” she said. “Class sizes are going to be larger than they were before COVID.”

Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Eric Mineweaser said that staff are currently processing student scheduling requests now and will then start determining how many sections of classes can be offered based on staffing.

Board member John Wortman asked about a discussion for the number of periods in the school day.

“Going back to more periods in my personal opinion is probably better in terms of more academic offerings to students,” he said.

“We’ll be preparing that as part of staffing,” Weber said. “(We are) going to line that up as well with priorities and will be able to make recommendations.”