McDonald schools chief rules out sports facilities levy before Nov.

By Mary Smith

There are no plans for a spring ballot issue for a sports complex.

McDONALD — Schools Superintendent Michael Wasser said Thursday that the school board will not be going before McDonald voters with a sports facilities levy until “probably November.”

Despite an effort to raise funds and support for a levy by the McDonald Alumni Association with its Project Blue, Wasser said that the school board cannot move forward on a levy request now.

The Project Blue committee has been meeting monthly since last fall, but there is no new progress, said the school board representative on the committee, Jeff Hughes.

Progress of the committee was linked to a school board decision to place a levy on the May ballot, which Wasser has ruled out. The Alumni Association had pledged to donate $500,000 to the project.

The district is waiting to see what kind of operating funding it will receive in the state’s two-year schools budget.

Although Gov. Ted Strickland has suggested boosting spending for schools, Wasser said the district is still trying to sort out why the governor’s proposed school funding projection shows the district flat in receipts for 2010 and up by only 1 percent, or $56,865 in fiscal year 2011. With uncertainty still surrounding the 2010 to 2011 biennium budget and what help, if any, the new federal stimulus or “jobs bill” will offer, Wasser said he has decided it would be “the wise choice to hold off until November” on a sports complex levy ... This is not the right time to aggressively go ahead on this.”

Wasser said school administrators are hoping to have more information by the Feb. 23 school board meeting.

The board asked voters for approval of a sports facilities levy in November 2005, a 4.9-mill continuous levy for a new stadium, all-weather track and gymnasium improvements that was defeated by 60 votes. A 4.5-mill levy went to voters in May 2006 and failed again by a slim margin.