Despite its financial woes, Little Miami has maintained its “above-average” rating from the Ohio Department of Education for the past three years.
In November 1997, voters approved a 5.44 mill, 27-year bond issue that would raise $17.6 million for the purpose constructing a new high school building.
Decreased funding coupled with increased student enrollment forced the district to begin looking at a combination of budget cuts and ballot issues to remain solvent.
In November, 2008, voters rejected a one-percent earnings tax to fund schools, launching a string of eight levy defeats for Little Miami.
The failed issues were: Following the November 2009 ballot defeat, Little Miami Local Schools were placed in state-designated "fiscal caution".
The district received its first solvency assistance loan from the state in December 2010 in the amount of $5,071,000 to cover its budget shortfall for the remainder of the fiscal year.
[5] During the course of Little Miami's financial spiral downward, the district cut 105 positions, cut approximately $10 million from its operating budget, closed Morrow and Harlan-Butlerville Elementary Schools, cut art, music and physical education classes at the elementary school level, reduced bus service to state minimums, instated athletics pay-to-participate fees of $651 per student per sport, reduced course offerings at the high school and eliminated community use of buildings due to staff shortages.
Local newspapers and television crews ran numerous stories on the cuts the district had instituted and were on hand each election night to capture the latest results.
[6] Little Miami also gained national attention from the Wall Street Journal and from educational trade magazines as many parties wished to study what happened when a community cannot or will not choose to support its schools financially.
Voter approval of this measure allowed the district to begin planning for repaying its solvency assistance loan and for restoring a handful of services.
By the end of the 2014 fiscal year, the district will have repaid a total of $11 million in solvency assistance loans and will be free of that debt.