Local news feed
Local news e-mail
MJ local mobileSchools ask for tax hikes while facing deep budget cuts
Hot Topics
Related
Staff Writers Updated 10:40 PM Saturday, April 30, 2011
Booming enrollment and huge cuts in state aid are sending Beavercreek City Schools to the polls Tuesday for new money for the first time in eight years.
Trotwood-Madison has been there often in recent years, but is hoping to reverse the results of the last four elections when voters defeated levies, in some cases by wide margins.
Little Miami Schools in Warren County is hoping to stave off extinction. Unless the district passes a levy by year’s end, the state could take the drastic and historic action of dissolving the district because of financial hardship.
In Lebanon, opposition to its 8.2-mill additional levy has sprung up over the school board’s one-year contract extension with teachers, which came days before Gov. John Kasich signed the Senate Bill 5 collective bargaining reform into law.
Levy elections come and go every year, but nobody thinks this year is like any other.
Ever since the November 2010 election, attention has focused on public employee contracts — and teacher contracts — with an eye toward cutting costs. The collective bargaining bill is supposed to give local districts the means for cutting costs in order to offset funding cuts at the state level. Whether that works remains to be seen, but school officials say the savings won’t come soon enough or be adequate to erase double-digit state funding cuts this year.
And so many are seeking help at the polls.
Tuesday marks the first time voters will have an opportunity to cast a ballot since debate began on Senate Bill 5. School superintendents say they don’t recall a time when they’ve been hit with so many funding challenges at once: a fragile economy, cuts in state aid and a housing crisis that battered the lifeblood for many schools: property tax collections.
School officials say they’ve made cuts to help stem budget shortfalls, including a rash of layoffs just in recent weeks. Huber Heights laid off 18 teachers and 16 paraprofessionals, Fairborn cut 33 full-time jobs, including many teachers, and Xenia cut 76 jobs and closed two elementary schools.
All have tax issues on Tuesday’s ballot.
Robert Waters, who belongs to Educate Lebanon, a group of about 40 active members who oppose the Lebanon school district levy, said the response to funding cuts shouldn’t be seeking more taxes.
“We appreciate our teachers, but in these economic uncertain times we can’t afford any new taxes,” Waters said. “When you run out of money, you have to cut expenses.”
Linda Borgert, who has lived in Beavercreek for 18 years and whose 8-year-old daughter attends school in the district, said she already voted against the Beavercreek levy by absentee ballot.
“It’s not that I’m against the schools,” said Borgert, 50, whose husband was laid off 18 months ago. “We can’t afford it. Things are really tough.”
“How can they justify asking for this levy in this economy when there are a lot of people out of work and people working two jobs to make ends meet?”
Many area superintendents said they have no choice — and are crossing their fingers about their chances on Tuesday. Some are confident, but Huber Heights City Schools Superintendent William Kirby isn’t among them. Kirby is concerned that his district’s proposal to seek a 1.5 percent earned income tax to generate $9.87 million will get rejected by voters because of “the economic times we’re in and because of the backlash against public education that’s going on in this state and across the nation.”
Across the region, 13 school districts have issues on the ballot Tuesday, including eight seeking new money. Many said the issues are necessary to keep the districts from having to make even deeper cuts that would impact the classroom.
“Every levy defeat gets us closer and closer to making cuts that impact kids,” said Trotwood-Madison Superintendent Rexann Wagner.
Trying a different strategy
After four consecutive levy defeats, Trotwood-Madison is taking a quieter, one-on-one approach to get voters to support its 7.5-mill operating levy.
Mass mailings have been replaced with phone calls and home visits by a core volunteer group of about 25 people.
Wagner said she’s confident the levy will pass this time after its narrow defeat last November by 179 votes among 7,075 voters.
May elections typically attract about 3,800 voters, she said.
“If we can get 2,000 positive voters in the polls, that should give us a victory,” Wagner said.
The levy would raise about $1.7 million annually, money Wagner said would ease the funding crunch to a district that hasn’t had new operating dollars in 15 years.
Wagner believes the district’s decision to close two of its five schools, beginning in the fall, brought home to many voters the “reality of the financial situation.”
Trotwood-Madison also has made $6 million in cuts since 2002, including a staff cut of 123 positions, or nearly 25 percent of the staff, Wagner said. The district has lost about 1,000 students in the past decade.
Wagner said the district has worked hard to retain busing for high school students, continue offering Advanced Placement classes and two foreign languages.
A familiar problem
School issues on Tuesday’s ballot
|
|---|
Latest news blog posts
- Ohio treasurer, Senate candidate returns money under investigation
- Raleigh Trammell: The prosecution rests
- Wright State considers $284 tuition increase
- Raleigh Trammell: SCLC employees testify about food quality, for-profit restaurant
- Man pleads to voluntary manslaughter in Whitney Young Estates slaying
- > More news blogs
Copyright © 2012 Middletown Journal, Middletown, Ohio, USA.All rights reserved.
By using this site, you accept the terms of our
Visitors Agreement and
Privacy Policy. AdChoices
. You may wish to note our
other business policies.
User comments are not being accepted on this article.