The release of the Hamilton City School District’s five-year forecast has school board members considering the inevitability of an operating levy, its first in nearly 20 years.

“We are battling a stagnant revenue stream,” said Treasurer Robert Hancock. “We have made the commitment we need to make to at least keep costs the same, but (the current forecast) does not predict a salary increase.

“The good news is that we start at a place with a reasonable amount of $10 million” in cash reserves, he said.

The forecast predicts flat revenues through fiscal year 2017, the 2016-17 school year, at roughly $71.8 million.

Expenditures, however, are expected to rise from $73.3 million this year to $79.1 million in 2016-17, at which time the cash reserves will be $10.9 million in the red.

The forecast also does not take into account any decreases in state funding over the next five years, always a wild card when a district tries to project revenues.

The district has been helped, however, by increasing enrollment, which Hancock said is “very unique” for an urban school district. The increase translates into more funding from the state that is allocated on a per-pupil basis.

This school year “marks the sixth consecutive year where the district has realized an increase in enrollment,” Hancock said. “Preliminary information indicates that the head count increased by 123 students.”

The additional students are expected to generate an extra $572,721 per year.

“Perhaps it is caused by the near completion of the Master Facilities Plan,” he speculated. “Perhaps it is caused in part by the down economy and people are moving closer to government services, or they are less able to afford a private education.

“We suspect that is is a combination of those factors,” he said.

Board of education member Glenn Stitsinger praised the administration for doing a “thorough and thoughtful job” of reducing expenditures in recent years, which has included a freeze in wages, reductions in staff, higher employee contributions to health care and the reduced cost of operating eight elementary schools rather than the 13 the district maintained before the recent construction of new schools.

“We’re at a point now where there isn’t anything left to cut and still deliver the quality education our kids deserve,” Stitsinger said. “We’ve been very prudent (but) it’s going to be difficult to maintain things the way they are today.”

“I don’t think there’s any question about it,” Board President Larry Bowling said of the possibility of a levy in the near future.

“The disturbing part of this is that we’re going into the negative each year and our employees are staying the same,” he said. “So no matter what the state does, even if we get a little bit more money, it’s not going to take care of us.”