Ron's Journal Archive
State looks at Orrville-Rittman Schools Innovation
1/27/2010
Supt. John Ritchie is presenting in our Statehouse the story of savings being achieved by sharing top administrative positions between Orrville City Schools and Rittman Exempted Village Schools.
The presentation comes at the invitation of the Ohio Society of CPAs, with attendance by state legislators, their staff, business community members, and budget officials of the Strickland administration.
The meeting is designed to go further with a report the CPAs developed several months ago to show the way toward improving governmental efficiencies at the state and local levels in light of the tight budgets and limited governmental resources.
In his presentation, Supt. Ritchie explained that they have implemented an admionistrative compact between the two school districts. The districts are about 10 miles apart, both relatively small school districts. The J.M. Smucker Company was involved in developing the compact as a major employer.
This is not a consolodation. The Rittman Indians and the Orrville Red Riders continue as before.
The shared administrative teams include: Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent.Treasurer and their departments, Director of Operations, Special Education Director, EMIS Coordinator, Transportation Support Team.
Additionally, the districts are sharing things like inservice programs, a French teacher, special services to emotionally distrurbed or multi-handicapped students.
Technology has changed the ability to get work done for both districts.
Filling vacancies require a majority vote of both boards of education, according to the compact.
For breaking down the shared costs, the compact uses the percentage of student population of the two districts.
Performance evaluations of both the superintendent and treasurer are conducted by both boards of education.
The J.M. Smuicker Company provided advice on how the communicated with impacted personnel when they have taken on new brands and their production and related operations.
There was no salary grab here. There was no pay increase associated with combining the work loads of the shared positions.
In the second year, the compact is savings $270,000 in administrative overhead. This involved much savings in
Challenges involved here include: you cannot be two places at once. The superindendent every other football game, and graduations need to be scheduled at different times.
It was made easier by the fact that a number of external services are shared, such as the same regional union representative and emplooyee health care plans.
They think it is possible to add another school district or two if the right opportunities present themselves.
This appears to be the only such compact in the state of Ohio. Several other districts are looking at doing this at this time.
Given the current economic pressures, this may be a good time to consider these kind of efficiency changes.
Paid for by Citizens For Amstutz, Matthew Hochstetler Treasurer, 4456 Woodlake Trail, Wooster, OH 44691