Few school districts seek levies
Ohio voters will decide the fate of fewer school tax levies and bond issues this Election Day than in any presidential election in recent history.
In fact, Tuesday’s 113 school-related issues are fewer than all but one November election dating back to 2003. The year 2015 had 109, according to public election data compiled by the Ohio Education Policy Institute.
Overwhelmingly, the issues are renewals of existing levies, rather than requests for new funding.
In general, school levy requests had been trending downward in Ohio over the past two decades, but the last two November elections saw them creep upward, with 174 in 2018 and 154 in 2019.
Typically, a presidential election is a popular time for many school districts to go on the ballot because of anticipated high voter turnout, said Katie Johnson, deputy executive director of the Ohio Association of School Business Officials.
In 2016, 2012, 2008 and 2004, voters decided 150, 194, 231 and 285 school issues, respectively. But this year, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many districts to reconsider asking voters to raise their taxes, Johnson said.
Americans are filing unemployment claims at record highs throughout the country.
Meanwhile, surging COVID-19 cases locally and across Ohio have cast uncertainty on how schools will be operating from day-to-day.
“Right now, lot of communities are talking about, ‘Is my kid going to school next Tuesday or not?’” Johnson said. “That’s what their focus is on, and to hit them with a levy campaign on top of everything else, it’s almost inundating them.”
The deadline to place a tax issue on Tuesday’s ballot was Aug. 5, a time when most districts were focused on whether they would reopen buildings for the 2020-21 school year following their abrupt shutdown in March due to COVID-19.
That was the case in Hilliard, where school officials typically coincide levy requests with presidential elections, school board President Mark Abate said.
Rather than continue that cycle, they decided that it was better to hold off in 2020 and, like many Americans, cut costs to make ends meet.
Instead of hiring new teachers to staff all-day kindergarten, a new program, they reallocated other staff members, Abate said. The district also postponed plans to hire more guidance counselors for elementary students.
“It seemed a little bit tone-deaf, I guess, to be on the ballot asking for more money, knowing that everyone’s financial situations were strained,” Abate said.
While conversations about a new levy request will happen, it’s too early to know when the district may be on the ballot again, he said.
Likewise, Johnson said it’s difficult to know whether Ohio will see a surge of delayed issues on ballots in 2021.
Some districts, such as Hilliard, may want to make moves to eventually return to their typical levy cycle. That could mean asking for a smaller levy, to last until the next presidential election in 2024. Or it could mean proposing a larger issue, to forge ahead until 2028.
Other districts, meanwhile, may make reductions to get by for as long as possible without going on the ballot.
How much state funding schools will receive in future years is also unknown, as Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine will set the state’s new two-year budget next year. A nonpartisan proposal to completely overhaul the state’s school funding system is in the works, with legislators hoping to finalize it before the end of the calendar year.
“It’s really hard for districts to determine what their needs are going to be,” Johnson said. “There are so many unknowns, which are factoring into why some of them are holding off.”
But for districts with existing levies set to expire when 2020 ends, doing so could have dire consequences.
The 11.73-mill levy the Delaware school district hopes to renew Tuesday generates 27% of its operating budget from property taxes, or about $9.4 million. It costs residents $359 per year for every $100,000 of assessed home value.
“If we didn’t go on the ballot, we’d lose that stream of revenue,” Delaware schools spokeswoman Jennifer Ruhe said. “We didn’t have much of a choice.”
According to Ohio law, typically schools can first start asking voters to renew a levy during the November election in the year before it expires. This is Delaware’s first attempt to renew the issue.
The district’s voters had just renewed a different issue in May 2019, so officials decided to wait until 2020 to ask them to consider another levy, Ruhe said.
“It wasn’t on our radar that we would be looking at a pandemic,” she said.
To help with long-term planning, the Delaware district has asked for a continuing levy, which would be permanent and not expire. Previously, voters approved the issue for a length of 10 years.
The other two school tax proposals to be decided in central Ohio on Tuesday are both new issues. If approved, the capital levies would fund the construction and renovation of buildings in the
Gahanna-jefferson and Pickerington districts.
Of this year’s 123 school tax issues in Ohio, only 36 are capital levies. No November has had fewer schools asking for that type of levy specifically, according to the Ohio Education Policy Institute data.
Gahanna-jefferson’s proposed 37year, $205.7-million bond issue would fund construction of a new high school and renovations in five buildings. It is coupled with a 4.26-mill continuing levy, to generate $7.1 million yearly for operations, and a 1.5-mill, 30-year levy, to generate $2.5 million for permanent improvements.
The entire package would cost residents $374 per year for every $100,000 in assessed property value.
The Pickerington school district, meanwhile, is seeking approval of a 2.9mill, 38-year bond issue to generate $4.4 million, funding the construction of a new junior high school and other renovations. It would cost residents $101.50 per year for every $100,000 in assessed property value.
Gayle Saunders, a district parent and chair of the committee promoting the bond issue, said despite its many challenges, the COVID-19 pandemic has actually made it a good time to finance construction due to low interest rates.
The district also continues to enroll new students due to a housing boom in the area — which, because of those low rates, is unlikely to slow down, she said.
“We really did think about this long and hard, and we believe it’s still the right time,” Saunders said.
awidmanneese@dispatch.com