Renewals of school levies send message to districts

Mahoning Valley school districts batted a thousand this week as 100 percent of their property-tax renewal levies won voter support at the polls Tuesday.

That stellar rate reflects a statewide trend of increasing community approval of continuing consistent levels of taxpayer funding for school operations. Statewide, voters were mostly supportive of school levies – though they were much less inclined to back additional millage.

According to the Ohio School Boards Association, voters this week OK’d 94 of 110 school tax issues, including 17 of 30 new tax issues and 77 of 80 renewals.

“While there were relatively few school issues on the ballot, the total passage rate of slightly more than 85 percent is the highest success rate in at least 15 years,” Damon Asbury, the group’s director of legislative services, said Wednesday.

Voters in Austintown, Boardman, Canfield, Struthers, Champion, Newton Falls and Youngstown contributed to that success as all gave thumbs-up support to 10 renewal issues. In most school districts, the margin of victory was sizable.

We are particularly pleased with the outcome in Youngstown where voters handily approved the 10.7-mill, 4-year renewal levy for emergency requirements to raise $5,291,510 annually. Many voters clearly and wisely separated any displeasure they have with the ongoing state takeover of the district from the day-to-day financial needs of the school system. Regardless of who is in the driver’s seat for the city schools, they must still rely largely upon local taxpayer support for survival.

MESSAGES TO DISTRICTS, STATE

Collectively the results of Tuesday’s tax issues send messages to school districts and statewide school policymakers and legislators. The overwhelmingly high passage rates for renewal tax levies indicates that voters remain willing to continue to invest in their schools, their property values and their communities by ensuring that their school administrators have the wherewithal to maintain competent programming.

The relative dearth of additional levies – only 30 among Ohio’s 600-plus school districts – on the General Election ballot indicates that boards of education may be adopting a more conservative attitude toward reaching out to taxpayers for greater levels of assistance and that when they do so, they must be armed with strong evidence of compelling needs for additional resources.

Given the results of those levies – only slightly above 50 percent passed – that would be the attitude districts ought to embrace.

In Poland, for example, voters soundly rejected a $28 million bond issue and 0-5-mill additional levy for school renovations and construction. Voters there either did not support the plan for the district’s future or simply could not afford the additional expense.

Tuesday’s results also should send messages to Columbus. The continued trend of voter repudiation of additional-tax issues should serve as yet another wake-up call to Ohio education leaders and state legislators to fix Ohio’s dysfunctional education system once and for all.

The state’s school funding system has been declared unconstitutional several times over the past 17 years, and despite some minor tinkering, it remains broken. Overreliance of the local property tax has created unequal schools. Rich school districts with high property values provide better education than poor districts with low values, which runs counter to the state’s constitutional guarantee of a “thorough and efficient” education for every student.

Nationwide, the average for support from state government to local schools is about 45 percent; in Ohio, state support accounts for only about 29 percent of school districts’ budgets, meaning local taxpayers are burdened much more heavily than average Americans.

Clearly the crisis in Ohio school funding first exposed in the 1997 DeRolph decision has not eased. That’s why it is incumbent upon state education leaders and legislators to commit to statewide school-funding reform. Until they do, the quality and solvency of our state’s public education system will continue to hang in the balance.