photo by: Craig Howell

Residents pack the gallery at Monday’s Hancock County Board of Education meeting, hoping to learn more about the school district’s financial issues.

While an investigation into financial difficulties facing Hancock County Schools isn’t yet complete, an official with the West Virginia Department of Education indicated the issue could be similar to problems experienced in other counties.

A majority of Monday’s meeting of the Hancock County Board of Education was focused on the school district’s financial picture, following the board’s recent decision to terminate the employment of its former finance director and the revelation the district may have gone into the red during the last school year.

Uriah Cummings, school financial operations officer for the West Virginia Department of Education, addressed the school board and a large audience of concerned residents gathered at the John D. Rockefeller IV Career Center, offering some potential explanations of what led to the status.

“This is a statewide problem we’re facing,” Cummings said, indicating much of the issue can be traced to measures taken during the COVID pandemic.

In general, Hancock County Schools, as with other county systems in West Virginia, has experienced declining enrollment, mixed with having more staffing than is supported through the state’s school aid formula and local taxes, and a loss of state and federal funds made available as a result of the pandemic.

Cummings pointed to a loss of approximately 450 students between 2021 and 2024, with an additional loss of 31 students for the current school year. He explained the district receives funding for approximately 72 professional educators and around 55 service positions for every 1,000 full-time students, as well as five professional support personnel — such as counselors — for every 1,000 students. Anything above those numbers must be funded through local revenue sources, such as excess levies or grants.

School officials previously reported the district has just under 3,300 students for the current school year, meaning funding from the state supports approximately 420 positions. There are a total of 574 employees within the district.

“As enrollment declines … the county is seeing a decrease in that funding,” he said.

Cummings also noted the regular use of employee supplemental pay scales, something he said seemed to date back to better economic times for the area, as well as a stretch of several years where there were no reductions in force within the school district.

Reductions in unrestricted fund balances, which stood at $7.8 million in fiscal 2021, going up to $9 million, then down to $3.6 million, and then to $4.46 million also contributes, he said.

“All that correlates into the financial situation the county is in,” Cummings said.

The board also heard from five residents, four of whom focused their comments on rumored plans to close New Manchester Elementary, although no decisions on facility closures have been announced.