State issues ‘no approval’ for Youngstown schools November levy

YOUNGSTOWN — The financially strapped Youngstown school district’s 9.5-mill, four-year levy could be off the Nov. 4 ballot because of a mistake made when passing resolutions on the tax measure.

To place a levy in front of voters, a school district must approve the tax proposal at two separate meetings. The Youngstown school board did that.

But the language on pages 5 and 6 of the first vote listed the number of years for the levy at five instead of four. Voters have rejected a 9.5-mill, five-year levy from the school district three previous times.

Those rejections led, in part, to the board’s decision last month to reduce the time-frame by one year.

The Ohio Secretary of State’s office faxed a hand-written note to the Mahoning County Board of Elections stating, “No approval” on the school issue “due to conflict in underlying resolutions.”

If the secretary of state’s office won’t approve the ballot language, the elections board would have to remove it from the ballot, said Thomas McCabe, its director.

School officials either were unaware of the problem or couldn’t be reached to comment today.

The levy committee had planned a kick-off rally today, but canceled it a week ago because of scheduling conflicts.

For the complete story, read Thursday’s Vindicator or vindy.com