Kent asks voters for levy approval amid financial challenges

Kent City School District leaders hope voters will approve a 9.8-mill continuing levy in May. If approved, Issue 1 will generate $8,522,335 annually for the district’s general operating budget.

That’s the budget that funds day-to-day costs associated with the district’s current level of services: teacher and staff salaries and wages, employee benefits, utilities, transportation costs (including purchasing new school buses) and instructional and operational supplies, such as classroom materials, paper and custodial supplies.

Red ink

According to district Treasurer Erin VanMeter, without levy approval, Kent schools expect to face a $6.8 million deficit by fiscal year 2029. The state’s use of outdated financial data to determine how much districts receive and refusal to fully fund its own Fair School Funding formula are only two reasons behind the predicted red ink.

“Federal funding has remained fairly steady for us, but this year we’re receiving $300,000 less in state funds than we did last year. We’re going to lose another $400,000 next year,” VanMeter said. 

Profits from the Ohio lottery are supposed to support the state’s public schools, and they do – until one takes into account the state legislature’s longstanding practice of decreasing public school funding by the exact amount the Ohio Lottery remits. Net gain: zero, VanMeter said.

Nor are public schools seeing meaningful gains from casino taxes, she said.

Property owners across the county are reeling from the recent round of revaluations, but schools aren’t seeing green. Ohio HB 920, passed in 1976, stipulates that even if property values increase while a levy is in effect, school districts don’t see more money.

“As valuations go up, the millage each property owner pays rolls back, so that it collects the same amount of money that it was voted in as,” VanMeter said. “The 2013 levy was voted in at 8.9 mills but now collects at 5.2.”

Also draining district coffers is the $616,000 Kent schools pay for 157 of its students to attend private and charter schools.

EdChoice expansion, which state legislators approved in 2023, increased income caps for qualifying families, with the net effect that even families who could afford tuition and were already sending their children to private and charter schools were suddenly eligible for tuition vouchers, she said.

“If you want to talk about things that people are voting for, I don’t think any of us voted for our taxes to go to private schools,” she said.

Even so, state law prohibits school districts from running at a deficit. Districts with five-year forecasts predicting red ink must cut revenue or ask voters for more money, VanMeter said.

Unless district voters approve Issue 1, VanMeter expects the state to flag the district’s 2026-27 budget as pre-caution, the first in a short list of designations that can ultimately end in fiscal emergency. That’s where the state takes over the school district’s finances and “starts making decisions for us,” VanMeter said.

Dollars and cents

If approved, district property owners will first feel the hit in 2027. It will cost about $343 a year per $100,000 of the county auditor’s market value. That’s not the same as what a given property will sell for on the open market. To find the county auditor’s market value, pull up “real estate search” on the county auditor’s website, enter the relevant information and scroll down to “appraised value.” State legislators changed the terminology earlier this year.

Since few residential properties in the district carry an appraisal value of $100,000, the $343 figure may be confusing. The Kent school district includes the city of Kent, Franklin Township, Sugar Bush Knolls and a small portion of southern Streetsboro.

The median appraised value of residential property in Franklin Township is $262,600, said Matt Adelman, real estate appraisal supervisor for the county auditor’s office. It’s $201,000 in Kent, $385,200 in Sugar Bush Knolls and $263,500 in the portion of Streetsboro that sends its children to Kent schools.

That means half of district property owners will actually see a property tax increase of about $700, and many will be paying even more, he said. 

Kent resident Dawn Albright is willing to make the commitment.

“I always vote to support the schools. I think it supports our property values and also the sort of society I want to live in,” she said.

Kent resident Jill Forsman has supported every school levy, but believes this time may be different. A 9.8-mill levy, she said, is too much.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that the state’s method for funding public education was unconstitutional, but successive state legislators have done little to lift the burden off property owners, Forsman said. 

(The Ohio Supreme Court declared an end to the original DeRolph v. State of Ohio case in 2003. Ohio lawmakers have changed Ohio’s school funding system several times since the conclusion of the DeRolph case, but the underlying reality remains the same: property owners bear the burden.)

“I’m witnessing people who are struggling more and more because their benefits are being cut and inflation is going up. I know people who are at real risk of losing their homes. Say it’s your grandma. I’ll be damned if I’m going to start doing GoFundMe’s so we can keep people in their homes, so they can pay their taxes,” Forsman said. 

VanMeter said she does sympathize and hopes for statewide property tax reform.

“I think targeted relief needs to happen. I have heard some things floated out there about income-based reform: if you’re a senior or disabled or a veteran, you don’t see the increases,” she said.

Hoping for support

Hoping to encourage voters to support Issue 1, district officials note that they have not asked voters for operating funds since 2013. School officials say reducing 23 teaching, administrative and support positions, reducing equipment and supply costs, participating in energy-saving programs, reducing certain facility expenses and using federal and state grant funding has kept the 2013 funding level viable until now.

Even as district expenses increased, Kent schools have hired a school resource officer, installed safety vestibules in every school building, upgraded security technology, implemented a visitor management system and purchased Chromebooks for almost every student, VanMeter said.

District voters did approve a 30-year, $25.19 million, 2.36-mill “No New Tax” bond issue in March 2020. Earmarked for capital improvements, proceeds have so far funded HVAC in all of the district’s buildings, some roofing projects, Davey Elementary and high school auditorium renovations and a new high school gym and fieldhouse.

The money to service the bond still comes out of property owners’ pockets, but since bonds used to build the middle school were expiring, the district reasoned that asking voters for the same amount essentially continued an existing tax, not asked for a new one, VanMeter said.

A possible future

State legislators are also considering HB 420, a bill that would eliminate continuous operating levies such as the one Kent school district voters now face. Instead, all levies would have a fixed term: school districts would be forced to ask voters for funds every four, five or 10 years.

“That is the one I have been keeping a close eye on,” VanMeter said. “Those are the only levies we have here. If that should pass, our levies would sunset overnight. We would lose approximately $27 million. It would eliminate all of our local funding overnight, with the exception of the bond.”

Should HB 420 pass, VanMeter predicted district voters would experience voter fatigue, which often translates to ‘no’ votes at the ballot box. She’s seen it happen in other communities and hopes fighting it isn’t in Kent’s future.