Sat Nov 21 2009
By Bob Gaetjens
Gateway News editor
Streetsboro City Schools face a $911,000 cash deficit at the end of the school year and the district is asking voters to approve a 9.5-mill, continuous operating levy Tuesday to plug the hole and provide financial stability into the future.
According to Treasurer Neil Barnes, Issue 38would raise about $4 million per year and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $291 per year in new taxes.
Levy approval will minimize the need for levies in the future, said Superintendent Linda T. Keller.
If Issue 38 were smaller — 5.5 mills, for example — the board of education would need to request a levy during 2010 to replace an expiring 3.5-mill levy, even if the issue was approved this fall, she said.
Keller said she is “sensitive” to the fact that many in the community are struggling.
“We understand that many folks are not in situations where coming to them for a levy is an easy thing to do,” she said. “We recognize the fact the community is levy saturated,”
Resident Martin Fleming, who has distributed signs around the community encouraging voters to reject the levy, said he opposes the levy because it would burden many families.
“People had to give up medicine and meals last time around to make the levy work,” said Fleming. “What are they going to have to give up this year?”
“Twenty-four dollars — for some it’s a pizza; for some it’s a movie night out; for others, it’s a pair of shoes. It’s my sanity knowing that my student made it to school safely on the bus,” said resident Christy Nickerson, who is a member of People’s Alliance for Streetsboro Schools, a political action committee campaigning for the levy’s passage.
Eighty percent to 85 percent of the levy funds would be spent on salaries and benefits while about 10 percent would be spent on contracts and other purchased services. The remaining 5 percent to 10 percent would be spent on materials and supplies, financing uses and miscellaneous expenditures.
If the levy is rejected, the board may consider $1.3 million in cuts and cost saving measures proposed by the administration. The cuts would include reducing busing to state minimum standards; laying off around 60 staff, tutors and aides, teachers and one unidentified administrator; increasing fees for sports and “co-curricular” activities such as band and choir; reducing contractual services; and suspending academic field trips.
Barnes said the district also will save money by reallocating federal funds to help pay tutors and aides and also join the SchoolPool Electricity Program.
“Districts should always be looking at alternative funding sources to potentially lessen the burden on the general fund,” he said.
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