Akron voters are being asked to approve a 5.5 mil levy. That will cost property owners about $14 a month on a $100,000 house. Akron Schools Superintendent David James says tax-based declines along with losses in state and federal funding are forcing the issue.
David James: We're looking out to 2013,'14 and '15 and we start with $11.6 million in deficit then $56.6 million and then up to $107 million so that's an, you know, untenable situation.
James says it would take a 10 mil levy to handle all of the projected deficit but the district plans more radical cost cutting and more downsizing, what he calls 'right sizing', to cover half of it. In Akron and elsewhere in the region, the climate for getting voters to pay more taxes is not positive. Sabrina Cooper is volunteering at the ticket window for a youth football game in the Ellet area of Akron where she's lived all of her life.
Sabrina Cooper: Right now, the people have enough financial burdens even though the schools might need the additional help. But I don't think a lot of people are financially in the situation with the jobs to support anything additional. So I would think it would be a tough environment for it to pass.
Akron schools spend about $13,000 a year per pupil, that's 33rd among all Ohio districts and seventh among the state's ten largest. About a third of school budgets, including Akron's, go to non teaching expenses. Researchers for Cincinnati-based nonprofit Knowledge Works track those costs for transportation, maintenance, food service, and school level and central administrations. In a March report, they listed 136 districts around the state that rated excellent in at least one of the five spending categories. Sixteen of those showed up in two categories. Seven including Canton City, Euclid and Sandy Valley were in three categories. And Akron was the only district in the state to score excellent in four categories. Judy and Dan Gable are life-long Akron residents. They say the relative efficiency of Akron schools is good to know but the problem for them is with who is being asked to pay for what the schools do spend.
Judy Gable: We're kind of tired of the school levies and all because of being homeowners. I mean, we are the ones that pay for it but yet we don't even have kids in the schools anymore.
Dan Gable: I think they should look for another way other than property tax. Maybe look at some type of income tax thing. Let everybody pay it rather than just property taxes, tax payers paying that levy.
Regardless of what brings them to the polls, voters in Akron in November will be looking at a school operating levy for the first time since they passed one five years ago.