By Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

KINGS MILLS - For the first time in a decade of school budget forecasts, Kings education officials are seeing red ink in their financial future.

Kings School officials stress that it's not a crisis and they know what to blame: a sluggish national economy and declining state aid. They say it's way too early to decide exactly how to solve the problem.

Officials are anticipating a budget deficit in 2004 of approximately $482,000, but plan to draw from district cash reserves, which total about $2.4 million, to cover that during the second part of the upcoming 2003-2004 school year.

But it's 2006 that has Kings officials most concerned.

It is then that the largely residential Warren County district projects more than $34 million in expenditures while anticipating $32 million in revenue.

Projected cash reserves for that year would not be able to completely cover the deficit of nearly $2 million.

"We really have to watch these numbers," said Hale Husband, vice president of the Kings Board of Education, which governs the growing school system of more than 3,700 students. "We're currently going into the red, but at this point it is controllable and a workable situation.

In May voters overwhelming rejected a 4.5-mill bond issue that would have funded a $43 million proposal to renovate and expand the junior-senior high campus on Columbia Road.

"You can't rule out anything at this point, but we're not discussing any new levies at this point," said Husband, a six-year veteran of the board.

He added that there have also been no discussions of any program or personnel cuts in the upcoming school year.

Kings Treasurer Michael Mowery, who was unavailable for comment, will formally present the district's latest five-year financial forecast during the school board's meeting on Aug. 19.

E-mail mclark@enquirer.com