Board votes to place levy on March ballot
The New Richmond Board of Education voted 5-0 Dec. 16 on the last of two required resolutions to place a 9.4-mill operating levy on the March 2020 ballot.
A 9.4-mill operating levy would generate an estimated $4.25 million annually and is crucial to the support of day-to-day operations of the district including maintaining high-quality staff, supplies, and utilities. The requested millage amount includes .5 mills that will be earmarked for three key areas respondents to a recent district survey identified as very important: curriculum, safety/security, and technology.
Superintendent Tracey Miller called the board’s action “momentous.” It’s been over 40 years since a New Richmond Board of Education has placed a levy initiative on the ballot. The last was in 1977.
“In my very short time here, we have spent a great deal of well-placed time discussing this issue in terms of what best meets the financial needs of this district,” Miller said. “It’s been a tremendous amount of leadership with what’s happened here in the past 12 to 15 months in terms of trying to right-size the district and helping to keep us out of fiscal watch. But additional help is needed.
“We’ve come a long way, but we’re here now. By law, it takes two board actions to submit a levy issue to the ballot. We took the first one in November. Tonight is the second and final one.”
The Board’s action to place a levy initiative on the March 2020 ballot is well-timed. The State of Ohio was recently in contact with the district regarding the District’s Five Year Forecast.
The five-year forecast was filed shortly after it was approved in November, Treasurer Julia Toth said. State officials noticed the district is forecasting a third-year cash balance deficit of over $1.1 million, which is a similar situation that the district found itself in last December.
The process requires that the Board come up with a plan to eliminate the deficit.
“Our plan is to pass a tax levy to get that done,” Toth said. “The district last year responded with $3 million in cuts, now a levy followed by another $1 million in cuts. The state is still watching New Richmond.”
The cost of a 9.4-mill tax levy to property owners per $100,000 market value is estimated to be about $329 per year, less than $1 a day.
The need for this levy is due to a revenue problem caused by changes in power plants and deregulation. The district’s revenue has declined by $8 million annually due to these changes. The district made over $3 million in reductions going into the 2019-2020 school year. Another $1 million in reductions/efficiencies is being planned. Combined, the reductions/efficiencies and the $4.3 million a levy would generate will address the $8 million in lost revenue.