Local use was wise

Future historians and economists will render the final verdict on whether the federal stimulus effort worked.
But there’s plenty of evidence here and now that was used wisely in Jay County.
Jay Schools received about $800,000 in federal stimulus money a couple of years ago.
The state was also using stimulus funds to shore up its regular funding of public education. But the nearly $800,000 was for Jay Schools to use as local officials saw fit.
For about a year, the school corporation essentially banked it.
There was so much uncertainty about the state’s ability to support the school system’s general fund that sitting on the money seemed the prudent and conservative thing to do.
This year, the school corporation put some of the money — a little over half of it — to work. And it did so creatively.
That’s where money came from to provide incentives for older, more highly paid teachers to retire. That’s where funds came from to provide a similar early retirement incentive for non-certified personnel and administrators.
What’s the net result?
•Most of that $450,000 or so will flow directly into the local private economy.
•As many as 40 new local jobs were created. Twenty-two teachers, 17 support staff, and the food service director retired, opening up those positions.
•The school corporation’s payroll obligations will be greatly reduced, essentially resulting in a full payback of the incentive program in a single year. The payroll and benefit cost of a new teacher is about $30,000 a year less than a teacher at the end of a career. That translates into a savings of about $660,000 if all the positions are filled. And that’s not a one-time savings; it’s a permanent reduction in school overhead.
•The community will see an influx of new college graduates ready to join the teaching profession and will have the opportunity to make them welcome.
•About $350,000 remains on hand to help weather state funding shortfalls and possibly do a similar incentive program next year.
Did the stimulus make sense on a national level? We’ll leave that to the economists.
But it sure worked well for Jay Schools. — J.R.[[In-content Ad]]