Youngstown board approves shorter levy term

By Harold Gwin

The amount will still be 9.5 mills, but the duration will be one year shorter.

YOUNGSTOWN — The city school board will ask voters to approve a four-year, additional tax levy in November, instead of the five-year levy it has been trying to get passed.

Also, the board says it won’t seek a renewal after the levy — if approved — expires.

The school board voted Tuesday to ask the Mahoning County auditor to certify the amount of millage needed to raise about $5.3 million a year with the new levy.

That amount is expected to be 9.5 mills, the same size as the five-year levy that has been rejected by district voters three times.

Youngstown has been in state-declared fiscal emergency since November 2006 when it ran a $15 million general fund deficit.

The school board, gathering in caucus immediately before Tuesday’s regular meeting, looked at several new levy scenarios — from a three-year to a 10-year levy perspective — and settled on a plan to ask voters to approve the tax for four years.

“I think that, the shorter, the better,” said board member Michael Murphy, adding that three or four years would be more acceptable to the public.

However, projections by William Johnson, district treasurer, showed that a three-year levy wouldn’t be enough to bring the district out of the red.

Johnson said Youngstown could eliminate its deficit in 2012 with a four-year, 9.5-mill, nonrenewal levy, but would run back into the red in 2016 to the tune of about $2 million.

Board member Anthony Catale said he believes it is feasible for the district to cut another $2 million in spending over the next two years, a move that would prevent a return to a budget deficit in 2016.

Youngstown has already cut some $26 million in annual spending, eliminating about 450 jobs in the process, and Dr. Wendy Webb, superintendent, has said additional cuts will be forthcoming.

Those additional cuts will likely impact academics, she warned.

Shelley Murray, board president, said she would be more comfortable with a five-year levy that would provide some economic cushion, but most board members favored a shorter term.

Several said it will be up to the board to demonstrate to the public what steps the district has taken to curtail spending, if voters are to be persuaded to pass the November levy.

The district has borrowed $25 million from the state in the form of solvency loans to cover its deficits over the last two years. It still owes $18 million of that debt, which must be repaid over the next two years.

If it didn’t have to repay those loan funds, the deficit would be gone now, school officials have said. Board members have written to Gov. Ted Strickland and area state elected officials asking that all or part of the remaining debt be forgiven.

gwin@vindy.com