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Forest Hills treasurer outlines five-year forecast, cash reserves and potential levy timing
Summary
Treasurer Alana presented the district's five-year general-fund forecast: FY26 revenue about $108 million, expenditures about $102 million, and a projected $5.9 million addition to cash reserves. She cautioned that inflationary expense growth and state policy changes affect future levy timing.
Treasurer Alana presented the Forest Hills School District's general-fund five-year forecast at the Feb. 18 board meeting, summarizing revenue sources, projected expenditures and reserve levels.
Highlights from the presentation:
- FY26 projected revenue: approximately $108,000,000; projected expenditures: approximately $102,000,000, leaving an expected net increase to cash reserves of about $5,900,000 this year.
- Revenue composition: roughly $80 million from local sources (real-estate/public-utility taxes and TIF arrangements) and 24% from state funding; ‘‘other revenue'' is roughly $3 million, mostly kindergarten tuition.
- Expenditures: personnel costs make up about 85% of the general-fund budget; purchase services and utilities are the next-largest categories.
- Cash-on-hand: the district projects about 134 days of cash on hand at the end of FY27, with a projected decline beginning in FY28 as expenditures begin to outpace revenues unless revenue sources change.
Alana also briefed the board on donation and grant items in recent financials. She identified a notable donation related to athletic training and facility support from Christ Hospital; the transcript discussed a contribution described in the meeting in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and suggested amounts to secondary schools and the district. The Treasurer placed donation proceeds in a special fund for athletic training and facility needs.
State policy discussion: Alana reviewed House Bill 129 and House Bill 186, which would revise the 20-mill floor calculations and levy reduction factors. She said Forest Hills would not be adversely affected because the district already provides property-tax relief and its levies are already included in the 20-mil floor calculation; other districts could see material revenue losses if the bills pass as drafted.
Benchmarks and CUP report: Alana presented Ohio's CUP benchmarking data comparing Forest Hills to 20 similar districts. The key takeaways were that Forest Hills spends less per pupil ($15,849 operating expenditures per pupil) than the peer average ($17,057) while maintaining a performance index in the top half of those comparable districts.
Next steps: The treasurer said the district will continue budget development and monitoring and emphasized that a new levy may be needed in the 2029–2030 timeframe if revenue trends and state budgets do not change. Board members discussed potential streamlining of monthly treasurer reports and agreed to follow-up conversations in committee.
