43
August unkind to special elections in Valley
and Ashley Luthern
YOUNGSTOWN
If the past decade is an indicator, good fortune is not on the side of those in the Mahoning Valley with issues on the Aug. 2 special-election ballot.
A review by The Vindicator of August special-election results from the past 10 years reveals that voters in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties approved only five of the 23 issues on those ballots. Also, voters approved only one — a 4.7-mill Bristol schools renewal levy on Aug. 4, 2009 — of 13 ballot issues since 2005.
“The rule of thumb was these [issues on special-election ballots] would pass 10 to 15 years ago,” said Thomas McCabe, Mahoning County Board of Elections director. “That’s not the trend anymore. Some people think you can sneak a levy through during a special election. I think there’s been a backlash. Right now, it’s a bad environment to ask for anything additional with the economy.”
Of the four issues on the Aug. 2 ballot, two are additional tax requests: a Poland schools levy that failed Tuesday and a Boardman police levy that failed in November. Also, Bazetta Township has a replacement levy and a renewal levy for consideration in August.
When Boardman trustees placed a 3.85-mill, five-year additional levy for police services on the November ballot, it did poorly in areas of the township that were in the Poland and Canfield school districts.
Does the Poland schools levy on the August ballot worry township trustees?
“Yes, obviously it concerns me. ... We really took a bit of a beating in the areas last November. Whether it’s Boardman Township, Poland schools or Canfield schools, that’s pretty much where we lost the levy in November,” said Trustee Chairman Thomas Costello.
The Poland levy could be removed from the August ballot.
The Poland Board of Education will revisit the 4.9-mill, five-year additional levy at its May meeting, said Superintendent Robert Zorn.
The school board “can rescind that,” Zorn said. “I know they’ll rescind the renewal [because it was approved Tuesday], whether or not they rescind the new, I’m not sure. ... That’s something they have to decide.”
Zorn said he is advising the board to consider the cost to the school district and the success rate of issues on August special elections.
It would cost the school district about $12,000 to $16,000 to put the issue on the August ballot, elections officials say.
Zorn said money for election costs is set aside within the district’s annual budget, but acknowledged that special elections do cost more.
“I’m worried about all costs,” he said.
Mahoning County elections officials didn’t have the dollar amount it cost the Poland school district to have the tax levies on Tuesday’s ballot. The cost was about $10,000 for the district to have a tax-renewal issue on the May 2009 ballot, McCabe said.
During odd years, political entities with issues and candidates on a primary election are charged an equal amount per precinct for the board of elections to advertise, print absentee and provisional ballots, rent polling places, pay the salaries of part-time workers, and ship the voting machines to the polls, among other expenses, McCabe said.
Each precinct costs about $800 to $1,000 on average for special elections with poll workers making up about $500 of that per-precinct expense, McCabe said. There are two Boardman Township-Poland schools precincts, so the two entities would split the cost of running that pair of precincts if the Poland school board decides to keep the levy on the August ballot.
For Boardman, the August special-election cost will be between $36,800 and $46,000.
Some residents have questioned the trustees’ decision to spend that money on a special election when it would be substantially cheaper to put the measure to voters in November.
But Costello said the decision was based on money.
The township fully funds the first six months of unemployment collected by township employees who have been laid off, he said.
If the police levy fails in August, 20 to 30 of the township’s 132 employees will be laid off that month, and the township will pay those unemployment costs for the rest of 2011 and January 2012, Costello said.
If the trustees placed the levy on the November ballot and the levy failed, those unemployment costs would carry over for the first four months of 2012, “which would pretty much sink the budget in 2012,” he said.
Costello said the cost of the unemployment payments for 25 employees would be more than the money used for a special election, although he did not have unemployment costs immediately available Wednesday afternoon.
“Some people think we’re doing it [in August] to sneak it through. We’re not trying to sneak anything. We were hoping to be the only issue on the ballot so people know exactly what they’re voting on,” Costello said.
He added that in November, the additional police levy was the last decision voters had after 10 to 12 slides of other issues, and “a lot of people, by they time they got to that item, had no problem saying no to anything.”