Letters to the Editor

Government Strategy Is To Spend and Spend

Editor, News-Register:

All I hear is Ohio County Schools Superintendent Kim Miller complain that woe is her that parents get to apply and receive the Hope Scholarship. As usual nothing is offered by her as a solution to improve the situation except that she needs more money to run a school system with already an $89 million budget.

Let's look at the numbers. Since 2017 Ohio County Schools has experienced an enrollment decline from 5,269 students to 4,719, a loss of 10.4% in eight years. West Virginia as a whole is down 10.7% for the same time period. The population loss during these same eight years is 2.3% in Ohio County and 2.7% in West Virginia as a whole. Elementary schools in Ohio County have lost 15% of their students (Woodsdale with a whopping 20.7% decline). Wheeling Park only accounts for a 3.7% decline.

Despite losing 550 students in eight years, the budget of Ohio County Schools has gone from $65 million in 2017 to $89 million in 2024, a 36% increase corresponding with a 10% student enrollment loss. Only in government does this math happen, Math for Life for sure.

Ohio County Schools in eight years has lost the equivalent number of students it takes to fill two elementary schools, but we have yet to see a single cut in administrative staffing. The number of administrators continues to increase. Not one idea has come from the superintendent to reduce costs, like closing one or two elementary schools and/or a middle school to reflect the loss of students.

Superintendent Miller is right that the Hope Scholarship is causing more student attrition than just the population loss. Parents are voting with their feet after they get some money in their pocket and can afford other education choices. Again, the superintendent is great at identifying the problem but is painfully lacking on recommendations to improve the product.

Starring in promotional commercials obviously doesn't move the needle.

At some point we need to stop rubber-stamping new contracts for these administrators and blindly voting for tax increases for a fiscally irresponsible administration.

David Delk

Wheeling