For the first time in a dozen years, the Akron Public Schools are asking voters to raise their taxes to help fund the district and pay for a new North High School.
If approved by residents Nov. 5, the combined levies, appearing as Issue 27 on the ballot, would pay for school operations. They would also cover the cost to replace North High School, an overcrowded, rundown building that has seen an influx of students, particularly those from immigrant communities.
The school district must ask voters to approve the operating levy because public school funding in Ohio is built on a boom-and-bust cycle, said Steve Thompson, the chief financial officer and treasurer of APS. That’s been the case since the 1970s, when state law changed to effectively freeze the amount of property taxes collected for a school levy at the tax rate in effect when the levy was approved. The rates on existing levies do not increase alongside growing costs the district faces.
“That levy can never collect more than it collects on the day that it passes,” Thompson said. “Could you survive on 15 bucks an hour 10 years from now? Well, that’s what happens to schools.”
John and Kathy Renzi, who live in West Akron, said they voted for Issue 27 to support the community, even though they sent their own kids to private school.
Bridget Bourne, a West Akron mother, said she didn’t think it should be up to voters — who potentially don’t have children — to determine the resources for public schools. She cast her ballot in favor of Issue 27.
“I’ve always voted for levies,” she said. “I think it’s ridiculous Ohio still does them.”
The last time voters approved a levy for the school district was in 2012. It was a tough sell — voters who were still recovering from the 2008 housing market crash rejected the proposal in 2011 before greenlighting it the next year.
What exactly is on the ballot?
The levies, presented as Issue 27, are a combination of a 7.6-mill operating levy and a 1.29-mill construction levy. The operating levy will generate $26.4 million annually and cost homeowners with an appraised value of $100,000 an estimated $270 yearly.
The construction levy, dedicated to the rebuilding of North High School, will raise $4.4 million annually for 37 years to repay an $85 million bond. It would cost homeowners with a home value of $100,000 about $45 annually.
In total, the levy will cost about $315 for Akron homeowners whose homes are valued at $100,000. A single yes vote on Issue 27 will approve both the operating and construction levies.
Go here to see the Issue 27 ballot language.
Last levy was passed in 2012; stakes are high for this year’s
So why hasn’t APS proposed a levy in more than a decade? The simple answer is that such measures are often a challenge to pass.
“We haven’t had a levy in a long time, because we actively work to keep a levy off the ballot because it is not a real popular thing,” said David James, the former APS superintendent who left the district in 2021. “We tried to make sure we managed our finances along the way.”
James’ administration went to voters twice, the unsuccessful attempt in 2011 and the successful push the next year. By the time he left the district, the country was in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which strained individual finances but brought huge federal investments in public schools through the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund.
The stakes are high for the district if the levy fails. North High School is crumbling beneath the feet of its students, and if voters fail to pass a new operating levy, APS will have to spend from its cash reserves, a fund that Thompson said will quickly be depleted without new revenue streams.
Passing the pair of levies would allow APS to build a new high school and extend the length of time before the school district uses up its reserves. It will still need to make cuts, but its overall budget situation would improve.
Why wasn’t North High School rebuilt before?
With an unexpected influx of students at North High School, the school district must find a solution for the 93-year-old building.
The aging school is plagued with problems, including a leaking roof, asbestos in walls and floor tiles and widely varying temperatures from classroom to classroom. Ceiling tiles have fallen on student and teacher desks, and bins collect dripping water in a first floor pre-kindergarten classroom.
“It’s an antiquated building that doesn’t meet today’s educational standards,” Thompson said. “And you know, it’s an equity issue too, because all of our other students have either renovated or new schools.”
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Will Calhoun, an Akron resident who graduated from North High School, said Friday he voted for the levy in large part to support the rebuilding of his alma mater.
“North High School is in complete disrepair,” Calhoun said. “It’s absolutely wretched.”
While nearly every other school in the district has been newly built over the last two decades with help from a unique partnership between the State of Ohio, Akron and the school district, North was not.
The plan, masterminded by longtime former Akron Mayor Don Plusqellic in 2003 and based on a 0.25% increase in the city’s income tax, took advantage of a loophole in state law that allows school districts and cities to collaboratively build community centers that can also be used for education.
This is why most schools in Akron are called Community Learning Centers — though a new North High School would not be one, since there is no city/state partnership paying for the construction and it would be funded via a levy based on property taxes.
The partnership between the city, state and district raised about $270 million in order to receive $409 million in state matching funds for school construction.
At the time the schools were being replaced, though, North’s student population began to fall.
“Eventually, as enrollment continued to decline and the state started to limit how many students they were going to fund, by the time we got to where we are today, North was off the table,” James said.
What administrators and city officials didn’t know then was that the population in North Hill would swell with the arrival of a large and diverse immigrant population.
Thompson, who lives on the edge of North Hill, said the new residents are helping to revitalize Akron.
“There’s a lot of good reasons that we want to maintain that,” Thompson said.
While the school district had the option to pay for the construction of a replacement for North High School last year, members of the school board instead voted to approve the construction of a new school campus in Kenmore to replace Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Pfeiffer Elementary.
The district is paying for the construction using a method that doesn’t have to be approved by voters. The $40 million certificate of participation will instead be repaid with an annual payment subject to budget appropriation.
If the levy passes, it would take three to four years to build a replacement for North High School, Thompson said.
What could happen with North if the levy fails?
If the levy fails, it’s not clear what the district would do next.
There is no guarantee the district would continue to use North High School, Thompson said. District leadership could decide to close it and send the students to other schools around Akron.
While closing the school might keep the district from spending an estimated $5 million on a new roof, it presents other challenges and costs associated with educating a large population of immigrant students who are not native-English speakers.
There are dozens of languages spoken at North High School that require interpreters and other services the district provides. Spreading those students around the district, Thompson said, would increase those costs and have a negative cultural impact on the community.
“I think part of the allure of people migrating to that area is that they’re developing the north end of town,” Thompson said. “They’re developing it with the understanding that these kids are together and these families are together and it’s a tight-knit community. It’d be difficult culturally to break that up.”
What cuts may happen if the levy fails?
If the levy fails, Thompson said APS would have to make cuts to avoid using too much of the district’s reserves. Those cuts, he said, would mean a reduction in staff, who make up the lion’s share of the district’s budget. School board member Barbara Sykes said the board would try to avoid cutting teachers and academic programs, but nothing would be off the table.
The total current district budget, $573 million, is about 85% staff salaries and benefits, according to Thompson. The remaining 15% is divided among various operational costs. Thompson said the district will make cuts next year regardless of what happens, but if the levy fails, they would be done with a butcher’s hacks rather than a surgeon’s precision.
“We can’t wait to decide what we’re going to cut, we have to start looking at that now,” Sykes said. “… The bottom line is that we cannot run a school system in a deficit, because the state will come in and take over.”
The State of Ohio mandates that public school districts maintain three months of cash reserves, which is about $90 million for APS, Thompson said. The district has that on hand now but would quickly burn through its reserves without the levy’s approval.
“If you have declining student enrollment and you can’t pass a levy and you’re in deficit spending, it doesn’t take very long to crash through [your reserves],” he said.
The potential cuts following a failed levy would be on top of the $24 million in cuts the district made in May.
In addition to voting in favor of North High School being rebuilt, Calhoun said he was in favor of the levy because he wanted to support teachers, who lost 52 positions to the budget reductions.
Thompson said cuts that affected academics, athletics and other after-school programs could have downstream impacts that could negatively affect the city as a whole.
Having fewer teachers and academic programs would hurt student achievement, said Ali Enami, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Akron who has researched the results of passed and failed levies across Ohio.
“I would be concerned if this doesn’t get the vote that … the test scores would drop, the graduation [rate] potentially would drop,” Enami said.
He also said after-school programming that might be on the chopping block if the levy fails has a direct correlation with crime rates in a city.
“When you have a school program that goes longer in the afternoon, you don’t let these young kids come out too early and then get exposed to things,” Enami said. “You’re cutting back on the probability of these kids getting involved with the wrong things.”
Thompson also said students who are engaged in after-school activities perform better on standardized tests.
The long-term outcome of underfunded school districts is a lack of preparation for graduating students, Enami said.
“Getting better takes more time, requires consistency, requires potentially more resources,” he said. “But just not getting worse is already an achievement.”
What are the benefits of a passed levy?
Higher property taxes that benefit schools can also be a boon to the rest of the community: They raise home valuations and signal to businesses that the area is ripe for investment, Enami said. And strong schools are vital to the health of a city, Thompson said. A shrinking public school system is one possible outcome of the levy failing.
“You just can’t get around the reality that schools, parks and recreation and emergency services are vital to any city,” Thompson said. “They have to be strong. If they’re not, then you create an environment that is not conducive to economic growth. It’s not conducive to raising a family.”
Passing the levy stabilizes the school district’s operations, Thompson said, and allows the administration to continue its efforts to improve student outcomes. To put it simply, it gives the district and students opportunities.
Akron Mayor Shammas Malik said he thinks the levy is “desperately needed” to help educate students and prepare them for jobs in the community.
“I believe every kid in our community deserves opportunity no matter what neighborhood they’re born in, no matter where they live, no matter the ZIP code,” Malik said.
“The City of Akron has lost over 100,000 people the last 50 years. Decline can happen, right? And so our goal is to really stabilize and to grow. But if we don’t have a strong public school system, it will be very difficult to do.”
While the cost of approving a levy can be a concern for homeowners, Thompson said after 12 years without asking for money, the need for the district is crucial.
“I would just ask people to really strongly consider just how important this decision is,” Thompson said.