Canfield council supports school levy

March 26, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Mayor William Kay said its important that city council support the Canfield School District’s push to pass a 6.8-mill operating levy.

Kay asked council during Wednesday’s meeting to approve a resolution supporting the levy, which would bring in $3.8 million annually, for five years. Council approved the resolution 5-0 zero.

Also on the May ballot is a 1.6-mill emergency renewal levy that would sustain the district through fiscal year 2015. Levies of the same millage failed in November.

“Our schools are the very heart of the community,” Kay said. “As the schools go, so goes the community and property values.”

The mayor said as young couples look to build and purchase homes, they want to move to a town with a strong school district, a quality he said Canfield has always possessed.

“These young people look to live in a community with solid schools. I don’t like taxes, and you don’t like taxes, but that’s just how we play the game,” he said. “If this levy doesn’t pass, gone are the schools as we know them.”

Council also approved an ordinance to adopt new salary and benefits for nonunion city employees.

City Manager Joe Warino said the 14 employees affected will receive a 2 percent pay increase but will now contribute 10 percent to their health-care benefits. Their previous contribution was 8 percent.

Warino said the pay increase was possible because council factored it into the 2011 appropriations.

“It’s something we worked into our budget, but we didn’t anticipate these [state] cuts,” he said.

Warino said the proposed 25 percent cut in state funding this year wouldn’t impact the city’s ability to uphold the raises.