HAMILTON, Ohio — Hamilton City Schools on Friday rolled out a plan for structural changes and staff reductions in response to a mounting financial crisis driven by shifts in the state funding formula.
“Due to recent changes in the state funding formula, our district is currently operating at an approximate $5 million deficit during the current school year,” Superintendent Andrea Blevins said in a letter sent to community members Friday afternoon. “If no corrective action is taken, projections indicate that this shortfall could grow to nearly $10 million in negative spending for the 2026–2027 school year.”
Blevins said that the level of deficit is not sustainable and requires the district to take proactive steps now to ensure long-term stability and protect educational opportunities for students.
To address this financial challenge responsibly, the district has developed a plan to reduce spending by nearly $9.7 million for the upcoming school year.
To align its spending with available resources, the district is proposing the following large-scale operational changes beginning in the 2026–2027 school year:
- Closing Fairwood Elementary School and redistributing students to Bridgeport, Riverview and Crawford Woods elementary schools
- Shutting down the stand‑alone Hamilton High School Freshman Campus and transitioning ninth‑grade students into the nearby main high school building. The fate of the building is to be determined
- Consolidating Hamilton’s preschool program to Fairwood, which will be operated by the Butler County Educational Service Center (BCESC)
- Outsourcing nursing services to BCESC, while still ensuring that direct nursing services are provided in each school building
“None of these items ... are things that we want to do, but unfortunately, our budget is out of balance, and we have to address these for the ’26-’27 school year in order to ensure that we have a quality school district for every student, staff and community member here in the city,” Blevins told the district’s school board Friday.
Blevins said there are “additional unfortunate situations” based on local property tax laws that have passed in the last 90 days that will further change the district’s deficit projections.
“Throughout all of our conversations, both as a school board and with our community through our forums and different groups as we’ve met on this, our recommendation ... is to try to cut that deficit to as close to zero as possible for next school year,” she said.
The recent state-level changes mean the district won’t get there, Blevins said.
“We will still operate at a small deficit, but based on our cash reserve, we will be able to maintain without having to make additional cuts during the ’26-27 school year” beyond the plan presented by the district Friday, she said.
Part of closing the budget gap includes staff cuts, specifically:
- 12% reduction in district and building administration
- 10% reduction in teaching staff and Hamilton Classroom Teachers’ Association members
- 21% reduction in clerical staff and educational assistants, with some employees potentially shifting to BCESC preschool roles
- 10% reduction in food service and custodial staff
- 17% reduction in miscellaneous positions
Blevins said the district has 1,251 employees, with 153 fewer positions planned for next school year.
“However, through attrition retirement, we already have that list down to 101,” she said. “In a typical year, with retirement, we see anywhere from 40 to 50 staff members from all unions turn over, so I’m hoping that the actual staff that will part from our district will be 50 or less.”
She said that by next Thursday, every district staff member will know their status for the 2026-2027 school year, “whether they’re ... staying in their same building and role, whether they’re transitioning to a new building or role, or whether they do not have a secure job for the ‘26-’27 school year.”
In addition to staffing reduction, Blevins outlined a series of miscellaneous cuts to business operations, transportation, curriculum, technology and human resources.
She said initiating the reductions keeps the district out of being under fiscal caution.
“If we have a negative cash balance in out in two years, then our district would be put into fiscal caution,” she said. “If this plan ... would not happen, if we were to just continue overspending when (Treasurer Jeremy Frazier) files his August forecast next year, we would be on that list for fiscal caution so that we are very close to this line. This is why this is so timely for us to make these changes.“
Blevins said the plan unveiled Friday “really prioritizes our students and our culture and our staff in this district.”
“However, this does not get us out of financial concerns moving forward, and so this is a call to our board and to our community: we are going to have to really look at some long-term planning to generate new dollars in our school district,” she said. “Right now, we are taking those internally, we are tightening our belt because we believe that we can do that without needing to go back, but in a number of years, if this landscape does not change in public education, we are going to need some community support on this.”
The school has not had a new operating levy since 1993, Blevins said.
“This plan is to address the deficit. This is not a ‘if we don’t pass a levy’ (plan),” she said. “There is no plan in the immediate to put a levy on the ballot. We are doing this now to provide that financial stability, but long term, we are going to have to start brainstorming. What does that look like? How can our community help us support quality public schools in the city of Hamilton?”
Blevins emphasized, during her presentation to the school board, that nothing being implemented is permanent or irreversible if funding issues change.
School board member Dr. Joe Copas said the deficit is not the result of poor fiscal management by the school district.
“The people that are responsible for this are the elected politicians in Columbus that are defunding public education now, while the equation on school funding is complicated and convoluted and depends on variables that change literally every day,” Copas said. “In my opinion ... (although) the equation is complicated, the answer is simple: Next time we vote, we need to elect people that are pro public education, and there are politicians out there that are pro public education.
“If people in our communities don’t want this to get worse than it is, that’s what they need to do.”
Blevins, besides outlining the overall changes in a letter sent to families and community members Friday, also sent separate letters to parents of students at Fairwood Elementary and the Freshman Campus.
