COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A northeast Ohio school districtand two villages were flagged for fiscal
distress by the state auditoron Tuesday, an unusually high weekly tally that the state auditor sayshe’d like
to combat with a new alarm system of sorts.Action byAuditor Dave Yost placed the Mansfield City Schools in
northeast Ohioand the village of Edgerton west of Toledo in fiscal emergency.Bloomingburg, a village in
southwest Ohio’s Fayette County, was placedin a state of fiscal caution.The state may now intervene to help
the school district and Edgerton.Yost said the designations are "a function of the difficult economic
situation we’ve had since 2008."Fiscalcaution is a new distress category for local governments
establishedunder Yost, a Republican, who took office in 2011. It’s designed to warngovernments early that
their finances are heading into trouble, so theycan take corrective steps.Yost said in an interview that
hisoffice is also testing a new 16-factor checklist tied to detailed incomeand spending data that schools
and governments could use to predict apotential fiscal crisis three years earlier than they can
now."WhatI would much rather do is pick up the phone and call a mayor or acounty commissioner and say,
‘Hey, we’ve noticed some trends in yourfinancials that could lead to a pretty bad place,’ rather than
sendingthem a letter saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re in fiscal emergency,’" hesaid.The new tool is
being tested first in cities, but couldeventually be available to schools and villages like those
flaggedTuesday.Mansfield’s schools had been under fiscal watch since2006. Last month, the school board
formally acknowledged the district’sinability to erase a projected deficit without intervention. It joins
ahalf-dozen of Ohio’s 613 school districts already in fiscal emergency.Edgerton joins 21 other Ohio
municipalities in fiscal emergency.Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rightsreserved. This material
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