District to seek replacement levy

Email To A Friend
Printer Friendly
Comments

---

by Rachael Biasiotta

Associate Editor

Hudson -- Two months after voters approved a 5.5-mill continuous operating levy, the School Board Monday unanimously decided to seek replacement of its 1.5-mill permanent improvement levy in the May 8 election.

The five-year, 1.5-mill replacement levy would generate about $1.5 million annually, according to Interim Treasurer Lowell Davis. District Treasurer Bart Griffith said a renewal would generate about $1.1 million per year.

The 1.5-mill replacement would cost the owner of a $300,000 home about $138 per year, or about $50 more per year than the existing levy, Davis said.

However, he added, the exact cost of the increase won't be known until the county returns its calculations using new property values.

Board members chose a replacement instead of a renewal because the cost of needed permanent improvements is roughly twice what a renewal levy would generate over its five-year lifespan, according to Davis. The list of improvements can be trimmed down, but there is still a great need between technology, business needs, leaky roofs and other infrastructure problems, he said.

Technology is a huge part of that list, since recent cuts have made the technology budget virtually nonexistent, according to Interim Superintendent Jack Thomas.

"[Budget cuts] are catching up with us," Thomas said, adding that about two-thirds of the district's computers are five years old or older and require more money in labor than they are worth.

Davis said a renewal of the levy, which expires in January 2008, at 1.5 mills would only bring in about 1 mill per year because collections would be based on property values from the original levy. A replacement levy would be based on current property values.

District Communications Manager Sheryl Sheatzley said the permanent improvement levy first was passed in May 1997 as a five-year, 1.5-mill levy.

The levy at its 1.5 mill rate was renewed for five years in November 2001, according to Summit County Board of Elections records, with 65 percent voting in favor of the levy and 35 voting against it.

The resolution passed by the School Board Monday night doesn't place the levy request on the May ballot, Sheatzley said. Instead, it states the necessity of the levy and asks the county fiscal officer to determine, using new property values, how much the replacement levy will generate for the district annually.

According to the Summit County Board of Elections, the school district has until Feb. 22 to submit an official levy request for the May election.

E-mail: rbiasiotta@recordpub.com

Phone: 330-688-0088 ext. 3146