Public support for a proposed levy to fund the Akron Public Schools appears to be lacking, school board members said Thursday, while Superintendent Michael Robinson warned that needed budget cuts may extend beyond this year.
While the district’s five-year forecast has been modeled with $15 million of cuts, Treasurer and CFO Steve Thompson said during a Thursday school board meeting the figure was closer to $20 million. The district has not said where it intends to cut, but leaders expect to make decisions before this summer.
Robinson said even cuts between $15 million and $20 million might not be enough. He told the school board that because the district will continue to spend money out of its reserves even if voters pass the levy the board is expected to ask for, he would expect to see “quite substantial” cuts in the 2024-2025 budget.
And in the following two years, Robinson said, it’s possible the district would “come back and do more cuts.”
“It’s important for us to do these cuts, and I’ll tell you why, point blank,” he said, explaining that the state could take over if Akron Public Schools aren’t fiscally sound. “I would like to avoid that.”
At the same time, he said the large figures don’t necessarily mean that all the savings will come from eliminating positions — the district will look at other ways to save money, he said.
“What I don’t want to do is decimate a system,” he said. “What we don’t want to do is rip the bandaid off.”
Thompson confirmed that more cuts would likely be necessary in the coming years but said he had not modeled how many. He said he expected to know more in the coming weeks.
“What you can see in the numbers is, even with the cuts, we’re still in deficit spending,” he said. “We’re eating into cash reserves right away.”
Thompson said as the district’s population continues to decline, cuts are necessary.
“The stark financial reality is that we need to make reductions and we should make reductions,” he said.
Proposed levies would pay for operating expenses and new North High SchoolThe school board is expected to ask voters to approve a pair of levies this fall to help cover operating expenses for the district and to build a new North High School. The operating levy would be 5.6, 6.6 or 7.6 mills, while the North High School levy is proposed for 1.3 mills.
The operating levy could collect anywhere from $18.9 million to $25.7 million each year, depending on the tax rate board members eventually approve. At the low end, it would cost $196 a year for the owner of a home with an appraised value of $100,000; at the high end, the annual cost for the same house would be $266.
The North High School levy, if approved, would pay off an $85 million bond for construction over 35 years. It would cost $45.50 each year for the owner of a home with an appraised value of $100,000. It would bring in $4.4 million annually.
Together, the annual cost for homeowners would be anywhere from $241.50 to $311.50 for someone with a $100,000 home, depending on which option the board chooses.
Residents question need for levy, want answers about district’s finances
Board members said Thursday they’d gotten pushback from residents who questioned why the district needed the money.
“Within the community, there is a great deal of mistrust,” said Carla Jackson, the vice president of the school board. “They don’t believe we’re being clear and transparent with our numbers.”
She said raises that teachers won during negotiations under the last superintendent, plus union pushback on a tutoring contract in January that resulted in the company being dropped, had soured some community members on voting for the levy.
Additionally, Jackson said, some voting-age students told her they didn’t believe the district spent equitably on all schools and that their individual schools wouldn’t benefit from any additional funding.
“They are the customer,” she said. “They don’t think they’re being taken care of.”
Board Member Summer Hall said she had heard similar concerns, including questions from people about how the district got into the position it was in. She said that, as a voting citizen, she, too, had questions about how money would be spent.
And Board Member Rene Molenaur said she thought it was imperative that the district explain what the money they were asking for would go to and what might be lost if a levy wasn’t approved.
“What is this for?” she asked. “What do we lose?”
If the adults don’t educate the residents about the financial need, children will suffer
Diana Autry, the school board president, said she’d heard the same concerns. She said the discussions the board was having were helpful, and she wanted to make sure people’s questions were answered. She said she didn’t know when a decision on the levy would be made, though board members were originally supposed to decide on a tax rate last month.
“Whether we have a levy or not, we need to educate our community, we need to build that trust,” she said. “If you don’t trust us, we want to answer your questions.”
Akron voters last approved a levy in 2012, and state law means that the district hasn’t gotten additional revenue — aside from pandemic relief dollars — since then. With the federal money running out, the district has had to absorb spending into its general fund.
“That money is now gone,” Robinson said. “We have to determine what do we keep, why do we keep it?”
The district will again charge students for summer credit recovery classes, he said. The classes have been free since the pandemic, he said, though they cost students $150 a class previously. Now, they’ll cost students $50 per class.
“I don’t want to go back to $150, but we don’t know what next year’s going to look like,” he said.
Robinson said the district needs to do a better job of telling the public about the work it’s doing; board members recently approved job descriptions for three new communications positions, though the salary ranges for the positions were not discussed.
“You cannot expect the community to trust us if we’re not out there,” he said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to fake it til I make it. Communication is a piece we need to work on.”
Board member Barbara Sykes said she knew people were emotional about levies, but it was incumbent on elected officials to come armed with facts about why the money was needed and how responsible the district has been to that point. She praised the district for a recent successful audit and said she and her household would support any levy that was approved.
If the adults failed to properly educate people, she said, it would be the children who suffered.
“I know this community, I know this is a community that supports our schools,” she said. “I know they have questions. We need to go out and answer those questions. … Give them the facts, answer the questions, and let them decide.”
Thompson said even with cuts, the district will remain “under some degree of fiscal strain.” He said the district will need to build a fund to educate people about the levy, engage community members and begin to share information about the board’s plan.
“If we’re going to be on the ballot in November, if that’s the will of the board, I would encourage you to move quickly,” he said.
