School issues receive varied support levels

Voters defeated four out of seven items.
By WILLIAM K. ALCORN
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Voters in three of seven Mahoning County school districts passed funding issues in Tuesday's general election.
Boardman, Canfield and Western Reserve all had success.
Sebring, Struthers and West Branch had levies go down to defeat, and Jackson-Milton's bond issue for a new school was defeated.
Boardman schools led the way by garnering 65.88 and 65.21 percent of the vote, respectively, for a 6-mill, five-year renewal levy that raises $3.7 million a year, and a 5.9-mill, five-year renewal that generates $4.3 million a year.
Some 60.41 percent of Canfield School District voters approved a 1.9-mill, five-year renewal levy that raises $890,000 a year.
A 1.8-mill, five-year renewal levy, which generates $139,000 a year for general operations, easily passed in Western Reserve School District.
Disappointments
Voters were not as supportive in the Struthers, West Branch, Sebring and Jackson-Milton school districts.
"We are disappointed, to say the least," said Struthers schools Superintendent Sandra DiBacco.
With only 100 votes separating the "yes" and "no" votes, DiBacco said the 6.9-mill additional continuing levy, designed to raise $911,000 a year, was primarily defeated by absentee voters and Poland residents who are in the Struthers School District.
"We don't see the defeat as a vote against the schools or the kids. People are just taxed to death, and they don't want any more taxes," she said.
However, she said the school district, which is in state-designated fiscal emergency, will have to look at more cuts in staff and programs.
In the West Branch School District, more than 70 percent of the voters rejected two new taxes. One was a 1 percent, five-year income tax that would have raised $1.6 million a year for general operations. The other was a 3-mill additional continuing permanent improvement levy, which would have generated $600,000 a year.
Sebring School District voters continued their penchant for turning down school funding issues by rejecting a 1-percent, five-year income tax on wages only that would raise $390,000 for general operations.
Sebring voters rejected a 0.75 percent income tax proposal in August, as well as three previous attempts to pass additional property tax levies.
A 5.95-mill, 28-year bond issue was narrowly defeated by 20 votes in the Jackson-Milton School District. The bond issue would have enabled the district to borrow $12.4 million to build a new high school/middle school complex. This was the second time the bond issue was defeated.
alcorn@vindy.com