Senator Provides Update On Hancock County Schools Financial Crisis

Hancock County Schools is no longer at imminent risk of missing payroll. But lawmakers still need to address the district’s financial crisis.

According to Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, Senators can now take a more deliberative approach to addressing long-term financial issues in Hancock County Schools. 

Speaking at the end of the Senate’s floor session Thursday afternoon, Weld said that thanks to intervention from the state Department of Education, Hancock County Schools will have payroll through March. He said a mixture of further state advancements and local funds will help to round out the fiscal year ending in June. 

“As the problem continues on down the road into March, there’s going to have to be a decision made at some point in time, in February as to whether or not local property tax receipts will allow the county to pay its payroll completely on its own, or if that will be a mixture of state aid advanced from the month of May with the county collections,” Weld said. “And then moving into April, May, June, that will be paid for in local dollars because of the receipts of the ad valorem property taxes.”

The school district will still need $8 million from the state to make payroll and pay for other expenses in July and August. 

“The county is looking at approximately a $3 million shortfall for those two months of pay,” Weld said. “They’re also looking at about $5 million in a shortfall because, right now they’re not paying on their accounts receivable, so their financial obligations for payments that they have for things outside of like electric utility bills, water utility bills, and a lease that they have on turf fields, everything else is being put off.”

He says the legislature also needs to address underlying systemic issues that led to the financial crisis in the first place.

“How do we prevent this from happening in counties in the future?” Weld said. “How do we look at things such as personnel decisions, the (reductions in force) process, consolidations, the auditing process?”

House Bill 4574 allows the West Virginia Board of Education to loan money to school districts with distressed finances under specific circumstances. It was one of the two bills quickly passed by the House of Delegates to address the issue last week. The Senate Education Committee discussed the bill at length Tuesday, but took no further action . 

Weld concluded by emphasizing that Hancock County Schools employees will not feel the effects of the district’s financial mismanagement.

“Hancock County, the teachers and the school service personnel will be paid. The schools will remain open,” he said. “But we will find a way to ensure that they remain solvent, that the loan is there, that the manner, and I know that we’re working with our brothers and sisters in the House to make that happen as well.”