Hot on the heels of a state report card rating showing improvement at the district, Cleveland Metropolitan School District officials said Friday that a yes vote on the levy is an investment in the city's children and its future.
The district has a two-part levy on the ballot this November, a new tax and a renewal of a bond issue that had helped the district fund new building construction in recent decades. The 10-year, 8.61-mill operating levy would represent a new tax, and cost a little more than $300 per year for the owner of a home valued at $100,000.
The district has already made some cuts this year in response to a looming budget deficit, including cutting 25 central office positions and some after-school and summer programming. The district will be in the hole by about $110 million dollars by the end of the 2026-2027 school year if nothing else is done, according to the district's latest five-year forecast.
CMSD CEO Warren Morgan during Friday's City Club of Cleveland speech said that the district could cut as much as 700 staff if it doesn't get a new operating levy passed. Even if a levy passes, he said the district still has tough decisions ahead of it.
"We're not only asking the community to help us with our budget shortfall," Morgan said. "There's work that we're doing when it comes to looking at our programs, when it comes to looking at our building footprint, when it comes to looking at school optimization."
Major urban districts across the country are looking at or are in the process of closing buildings to save money after years of enrollment declines in city centers. The Columbus City School District is looking to close nine school buildings after a task force report issued this summer; CMSD officials have not yet said if the same is in store for Cleveland.
The school district educates some of the highest-need students in Ohio, said Sara Elaqad, president of the CMSD Board of Education. She said the district is doing the best it can with the resources allotted to it by the state and federal government.
"We don't turn away any students," she said. "And in our schools, that means we are providing additional supports for our English language learners, our students with disabilities and just looking to support families as they are, as they come in, as they enroll. We can't turn them away. And so we've got to do a lot with those dollars that are allocated to us by outside parties."
A strong school district will support the local economy, said panelist Shakorie Davis, president of Next Generation Construction, a CMSD alum with two children who graduated from the district. He also highlighted a number of CMSD graduates whom he's hired for local projects.
"We can always do better, right?" he said. "But kudos need to be in place when you start to see progress."
Several students asked Morgan about how resources are spread out at different CMSD schools. One student at Collinwood High School in particular said the football team's equipment is lacking at the school. Morgan said his administration is trying to take a deep look at equity across all school buildings.
"We do have certain programs such as band and music at some CMSD schools, but not all," he said. "So when I talk about the future of CMSD, we talk about every school, every neighborhood, every scholar. We need to make sure that we have the programming, the resources, the quality so that you can compete."
The levy will raise about $52 million per year, with officials saying during the forum that the majority of that will come from commercial business properties. Voters approved a levy renewal with a 5-mill increase in November 2020.
