Worthington Schools Treasurer TJ Cusick presented the draft fiscal year 2027 budget to the Board of Education on May 11. He walked the board through what he called a "net neutral" staffing plan, a food service operation returning to a pre-COVID loss pattern, and a one-time capital balance shaped by both the 2022 high school bond issue and the Kilbourne baseball and softball improvements. Cusick told the board the district is still aiming to stay off the operating ballot until 2028, though the next year and a half of fuel, utility, and construction cost pressure could change the size of that future ask.
The board is scheduled to set FY27 goals at a June 5 work session and approve the final budget at its June 8 regular meeting.
What's in the budget book
The budget book follows criteria established by the Government Finance Officers Association (a format the district must use). It opens with an executive summary, lays out departmental and capital budgets, and closes with a statistical section.
Cusick urged readers comparing line items to consider context. Two elementary schools may have different numbers of related-service providers because they run different programs, not because one is over- or under-resourced. He also flagged a few apples-to-oranges comparisons that residents will see when they pull last year's number against this year's:
- Net neutral staffing. Most of the budget assumes everyone stays where they are next year. One additional teacher and one aide are budgeted as a contingency for enrollment growth, but otherwise the staffing line is held flat.
- Central office reorganization. Several central office staff are retiring this year, which means some departments fold into others or change names. The reorganization is also net neutral overall.
- A "squiggle" in the prior year comparisons. At the end of FY25, Cusick paid teachers their remaining June pay early, pay that would normally have gone out in July and August, in response to potential state legislation targeting district cash balances. That made FY25 look artificially high and FY26 look artificially low. FY27 is back on trend, but may appear to be larger without context. Cusick said he would prepare written language so the administration and board can describe this consistently when residents see the 16% to 18% line-item increases without context.
General operating fund: revenue down slightly, expense pressure up
The general fund is about 72% of the district's budget. Cusick said the draft FY27 picture has revenue running slightly below the February forecast. He plans to recommend in June that the general fund stop taking its 30% share of athletic participation fees and let the athletic fund keep 100%. That's roughly $84,000 the general fund will give up.
On the expense side, the budget runs about $350,000 higher than the forecast, driven by pressure in utilities and fuel, both for transportation and for deliveries the maintenance department absorbs. Cusick told the board the district is running about 1% under budget through April, but that "we are feeling that pressure in certain areas", and he wants to be honest with the board about where it lands by close-out in June.
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Food service: returning to a pre-COVID loss
The food service fund is the budget item Cusick said the board will need to grapple with sooner rather than later. Last year ended with an $18,000 loss; this year is projecting about a $345,000 loss; next year about half a million.
The historical picture, Cusick said, is a return to the pre-COVID norm. Before the pandemic, food service revenue barely covered expenses, and in some years the district had to transfer general fund money in to make food service whole. COVID's free-meal-for-all era built a temporary cash balance, one the state requires districts to spend down rather than hold.
Lunch prices haven't been raised since 2011. Cusick described the math plainly:
- Holding prices steady drains the cash balance. The district runs out somewhere in the four-to-five-year range without action.
- Labor has already been reduced about as far as it can go.
- A small annual price increase (2% to 3%) is "easier to absorb than not doing it forever and then doubling the price".
A board member asked whether the district is happy absorbing the loss, or whether other options need to be on the table. Cusick said the district has to absorb some of the loss in order to spend the balance down, but that the broader operation may be worth revisiting during the elementary phase — the district's planned next round of facilities work, focused on its eleven aging elementary schools and Sutter Park Preschool, with planning beginning in the 2026–27 school year. The state of Ohio has signaled it may look at school food service operations in its next budget, he added, "so we'll see".
Capital and debt: level payments, one-time money tightening
The district's debt service fund is paying down the bonds issued in 2022 to build the high schools, on a 30-year repayment with about 27 years left. Payments are level for the next 27 years, which means there's no room in the existing schedule for new debt without an increase in millage. The one possible hedge: if interest rates fall, the district could refund the 2022 debt in 2028. The math doesn't make sense today, Cusick said, but it's an opportunity worth watching.
The district has three capital fund streams, of which only the permanent improvement (PI) fund is recurring. PI generates roughly $4.6 million annually in perpetuity. The district uses it to buy buses, provide buildings with furniture money, fund back-end non-student-facing technology, and direct about $700,000 a year to deferred maintenance. Cusick told the board the district needs roughly double the current PI levy size, closer to four mills, to meaningfully fund deferred maintenance as it takes on the elementary buildings.
The other two capital funds are one-time money:
- Building fund. Holds bond proceeds. About $7.6 million remains, comprising $4.5 million of an original $10 million contingency plus $2.7 million in remaining maintenance dollars from a $7 million carve-out. Roughly $5.5 million of the contingency was already spent on Kilbourne baseball and softball improvements. About $3.7 million of contingency is unbudgeted right now and may need to last through 2028.
- Capital projects fund. Holds a one-time general-fund transfer plus interest earnings on the bond fund, about $63 million total. Some general fund capital expenses (notably $1.5 million for student Chromebooks) are now paid out of this fund instead of operations.
Hartford Park: a $55,000-a-year revenue share from the city
Cusick previewed a new revenue arrangement tied to the district's Hartford Park facility in Old Worthington (across from the Old Worthington library). The City of Worthington has placed a development next to Hartford Park into a tax increment financing district and will share ten years of the resulting revenue — about $55,000 a year — with the district to fund renovations at the Hartford Park facility. The district will front the renovation work out of the capital projects fund balance, and the city will pay $55,000 a year for ten years out of the TIF fund.
The FY27 Permanent Improvement Fund budget book (page 77) carries a separate $600,000 line item labeled "Hartford Park" within the year's $5.45 million in PI expenditures.
State funding: $1.2 billion above projections
Cusick used his Treasurer's Report to repeat a recurring point. The State of Ohio is now $1.2 billion above its revenue projections, "$1.2 billion more than they projected they'd have at a time when they did not fully fund schools in the funding formula". The state said it could not afford to index funding inputs for inflation. Cusick said the more often the historical pattern is named publicly, the more leverage districts have heading into the next state budget cycle. Board members agreed and asked that the administration continue making that point in community communications.
What's next
- 2026–2027 school year: District-wide planning for the elementary phase — the next stage of the facilities master plan that updated the middle schools starting in 2018 and the high schools through the 2022 bond. This phase targets the district's eleven elementary schools and Sutter Park Preschool, which range from 35 to 70 years old. A community Advisory Committee will help shape it.
Cusick told the board he is "comfortable saying I don't think we'll return to voters before [2028]", though he acknowledged the scope of that 2028 ask could grow if fuel prices stay high or if construction costs continue to climb. "We're in OK shape right now."