Election preview: Stow-Munroe Falls school leaders say the levy need is ‘dire’

Fewer teachers and bigger class sizes could be the future at Stow-Munroe Falls schools if voters do not approve a new levy on next month’s ballot, district leaders said in interviews with The Spotlight.

“This levy is extremely dire for our district,” Stow-Munroe Falls City School District Superintendent Tom Bratten said. “If it does not pass, our taxpayers will see a completely different SMF schools than they are experiencing now. We cannot afford to continue to offer the programs, the locations, or the number of staff members we currently are able to offer to our students. We will be merely meeting the state minimum in many of these areas and most likely will still be falling short financially.”

If passed, this levy would raise $7.92 million over 10 years. The cost to homeowners is estimated at $50 per month per $250,000 of property value.

While the request is a 6.93 mills levy, the amount paid by each homeowner may change depending on the total housing valuation of the district. Since the levy can only raise $7.92 million over a decade – no more, no less – more homes and higher home values can result in a smaller share of the bill for each taxpayer.

The need for this levy has been a decade in the making – school financing is a complicated issue involving state funds and property taxes decided by voters.

It is confused further by different kinds of levies. The levy on the November ballot – Issue 6 – is purely to pay for day-to-day operations of the district’s schools.

The last time the Stow-Munroe Falls School District put a general operating levy before voters was 11 years ago, meaning the district has had fixed revenue from local taxes for over a decade while prices rise each year with inflation – with the past 12 months seeing a historic spike in inflation.

In 2016, voters passed a permanent improvement levy, which pays for items expected to last at least five years, such as building repairs, buses, carpets and technology. SMF Treasurer Trevor Gummere said the district is not allowed to use these funds for the day-to-day budget.

The Issue 6 levy is to meet the day-to-day financial needs of running nine school buildings and an online academy serving more than 5,000 students and their families.

The district did not identify any specific programs or positions that would be cut if the levy does not pass.

“Our operating funds are strictly used for day-to-day operating expenses such as electricity, textbooks and supplies,” Gummere said. “Most of this fund goes towards staff salaries, as we are in a ‘people business’ and our number one job is to educate people. This fund helps so many things that are not usually thought of by our community, including the way our teachers are able to teach and our class sizes. If we were to lose those elements, we believe it will cause us to lose incredible educators to places where there are still these opportunities for education.”

Wage levels in the district are in the “bottom of the top third of Summit County’s schools,” said Bratten. The district’s wage levels rank 134th out of 607 in Ohio, and wages comprise about 80% of SMF’s operating budget. As wages have increased each year, there has been less money available to spend elsewhere.

“For districts our size, a levy is usually necessary every four to six years to maintain their programming,” Bratten said. “We are extremely proud that we have traditionally been able to do this every 10-12 years. We have been very frugal and intentional about streamlining our budgets, implementing zero-based budgeting and maintaining a fiscally responsible presence in the community to make it last as long as it has."

He said the "unprecedented rate of inflation" is the reason they need to ask for money now.

“While we know that it’s never a good time to ask for money, we do know that this will be the absolute lowest rate we will come to our taxpayers and request," he said. "The longer our operating budget needs to be on the ballot, the more expensive it will be for our taxpayers.”

Board President Nancy Brown said the cash in the levy is a fixed amount – it does not increase annually with inflation. And new homes do not help, either; the total revenue stays the same while dividing up the payment per household into smaller amounts.

“The primary goal is to educate our community on the true necessity of the funding,” Brown said. “There is a website, supportsmfschools.com, with clear, concise information. We have held [three] Community Conversations, and we are publishing a series of short video segments called ‘Walk the Yard’ in order to get the most important information out in manageable ‘chunks,’ such as the fact that Stow-Munroe Falls has a lower tax rate than any of our peers in Summit County, and we will remain so even with the passage of this levy.

“If this levy doesn’t pass, plain and simple, we will have to make significant cuts.”

This article has been updated to clarify the amount homeowners would pay if the levy is passed.