Members of the Boardman Board of Education received a five-year forecast financial report from the system’s Treasurer. L. Greg Slemons when the board met last week on Thurs., Oct. 20.
      The forecast is required by law to be issued twice a year, and notes the Boardman Local Schools approximate $45 million yearly budget “cannot and will not support the natural increase in expenditures due to the natural inflationary growth over the next five years.”
      About 53 per cent, or $26.7 million, of the Boardman Local School annual revenue is generated by property taxes, and according to the five-year- forecast will not increase substantially “as a result of a slow recovery in both the domestic economy, as well as the local real estate market.”
      In addition, according to the forecast, Board of Revision hearings held by the county auditor’s office (where property owners contest taxation rates) “are projected to be detrimental...with decisions in values unfavorable to the school district.”
      State subsidies, according to the five-year forecast, will increase, and in 2017 are expected to yield an additional half-million dollars to the Boardman Local School budget.
      Salaries and benefits total slightly more than 72 per cent of total expenditures in the Boardman Local School District, according to the forecast.
      The forecast says that “trends in hospitalization insurance suggest sustained increases in insurance premiums.” Insurance premiums for medical and RX increased by seven per cent in 2015-16, the forecast says, adding that “Negotiated agreements with certified and classified unions require all employees contribute 10 per cent towards the premiums.”