CLEVELAND — Many Cleveland-based after school providers are expressing their concerns following news that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD) is forecasting a multi-million dollar deficit by the end of the next school year.

What You Need To Know

  • CMSD is forecasting a multi-million dollar deficit  by the end of the next school year

  • CMSD CEO announced that there will be budget cuts throughout the district

  • Out of school time after school programs could loose funding

David Smith is the executive director of Horizon Education Centers. A non-school organization operating five after-school programs in collaboration with CMSD. Smith is also a part of Cleveland’s for Afterschool.

Smith explained that there are more than 90 supplemental after-school programs, including his, that are all in danger of losing funding from the school district. 

“We want to make sure we sustain our programs, all 93 programs into next school year,” Smith said. “The after-school programs are at risk of discontinuation due to the lack of funds after the ARPA and COVID relief dollars expire.

CMSD is forecasting a $143 million dollar deficit starting at the end of the next school year. The district’s CEO Warren Morgan shared the plan he is submitting to the state before Feb. 29 to address the situation 

“Our task in this plan is to make sure that for the next two fiscal years, we end the year with a positive cash balance,” he explained.

Morgan said in order to achieve this goal, cuts are inevitable. Those cuts include reductions to the central office budget, which are forecast to amount to $5.3 million in savings for the district. 

“My goal was to make sure I made the commitment that we were making cuts at the central office, so there is actually a percentage of cuts we are looking at, at the central office,” Morgan said. “But the school-based budgeting pool is remaining the same from year to year.” 

Morgan said funding for out-of-school time extra-curricular activities, like Horizon Education Centers, are also on the chopping block. He explained that this budget did not exist prior to COVID relief funding and adds that the projected two year’s savings forecast for these cuts will be $34 million. 

“All athletics, some of our music programs, dance, art, some of the programs that our teachers run after school, are not impacted in this plan, it could be in another budgeting process some schools may be doing, but in this plan it is not addressing that,” he said. “There are nearly 400 after-school programs we run in the district, outside of out-of-school time.” 

Emmanuel Jackson is the director of out-of-school time learning at Cleveland Play House, an after-school program that Jackson describes as vital for nearly six thousand students.

He hopes that out-of-school time programs will be able to work with the district to continue operations. 

“Most of our scholars in these urban communities, what they know and what they are exposed to is sports, rap and things like that, and we want them to understand you can be successful outside of those things,” Jackson explained. “If finances are sort of impossible, just utilizing our resources and working together [with CMSD] to create after-school programs tailored to our urban communities.”