Related:
Understanding School FundingHistory of Ohio Public School FundingLay Finance Committee Report
Five-Year Forecast
Board Meeting Recap
May 18, 2016 -- At its Tuesday evening work session, the Cleveland Heights-University Heights Board of Education took the first steps toward placing an operating levy on the November 2016 ballot.
The levy proposed for this November would be 5.5 mills, which would produce approximately $5.8 million per year for school operations. This amount was reviewed and
recommended by the Lay Finance Committee, a group of expert community members who reported their findings to the Board at Tuesday’s meeting.
The proposed levy would be the district’s smallest operating levy request in at least 20 years.
In order to keep the levy request as small as possible, the district has consistently reduced expenses and sought to economize operations. In Fiscal Year 2016, the district made more than $5 million in annual budget cuts. Already for Fiscal Year 2017, the district has cut more than $3.25 million from its annual budget through staffing reductions.
Like every school district in Ohio, the CH-UH City School District is unfortunately forced to periodically ask residents for increased operating support to pay for educational necessities such as teachers and educational programming. While the district is always finding ways to economize and accomplish their mission with less, the funding it receives from residents is prohibited by state law from rising with inflation and the usual increases in costs that we all face. This means that the district is operating under 2016 costs, but with a 2011 budget.
The CH-UH Board of Education will hear a second reading of the resolution at its regular monthly meeting on June 7. It takes two official readings of a resolution to formally place the levy on the ballot.