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Poland residents want more information
POLAND
As the March 6 election approaches, some residents told the Poland board of education they still don’t have enough information about an upcoming levy.
The school district is asking for a 3.8-mill, five-year additional emergency-operating levy to generate $1,448,561 annually. After a bond reduction and tax rollbacks are taken into account, the levy would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $91.88 annually.
“We don’t feel we’ve really gotten any answers,” said Michelle Ray, who attended the board’s Monday meeting.
Superintendent Robert Zorn said school principals and administrators will give the board recommendations of what can be cut, but final decisions are up to the board.
Dr. Larry Dinopoulos, board president, was not specific about cuts that would be made should the levy fail, but elaborated on the situation facing the board.
“We’re not going to close an elementary school. The teachers are under contract until 2013. The elementary schools were slashed and burned, and we’re left with looking at middle-school electives and high-school electives, pay to participate” and other possibilities, Dinopoulos said.
The board has said it did not want to create a list of what could be cut or added pending the levy vote because it did not want to appear to be threatening voters; nor did it want voters to disregard the levy by picking and choosing services.
Another option, Dinopoulos said, is open enrollment, which some board members oppose.
Although open enrollment is estimated to bring in about $5,700 per pupil the district attracts, “open enrollment will not bail the place out,” Zorn said.
Zorn said even if the district cuts everything down to state minimum standards, the savings still won’t be enough to make up expected budget shortfalls. Projections show the district to have a $2 million deficit by 2014.
The last time an additional levy was approved was in 2003, for 6.9 mills. That levy was supposed to last for five years and was stretched until 2010. Voters turned down two additional tax levies in November 2010 and May 2011, while funding from the state continued to decline, Zorn said.
Since the levy defeats, cuts totaling more than $1.4 million were made, including more than 60 district employees either having their jobs cut back or eliminated, he said.
Also Monday, the board voted unanimously to allow a Poland Township police officer to make periodic rounds and have an office at the high school. “The school will be part of the officer’s routine day, part of the beat. It doesn’t replace the resource-officer program, but it does give some police presence inside the school,” Dinopoulos said.
The measure was approved in mutual agreement with the township trustees and does not entail any extra cost to either entity. The school had a resource officer from 2002 to 2006, when conditions of a federal grant ran out.
“The ultimate goal is to have a resource officer, but I think ... something is better than nothing at this point,” said township Trustee Eric Ungaro.