November’s ballot held a slew of local issues, including three that would have benefited local schools, had they passed. Now school officials in Aurora, Mogadore and Ravenna must determine where to go from here.
Aurora’s bond issue
Aurora voters rejected Issue 32, a 7.57-mill bond issue for school improvements, according to final, unofficial numbers from the county Board of Elections. If approved, it would have raised $136,356,400 that taxpayers would have had to repay for the next 37 years.
Had the measure passed, the plan was to close the century-old Craddock Elementary School building, move those students to Leighton Elementary, send Leighton students to the Harmon Middle School building, send Harmon students to the current high school building and build a new high school.
District Treasurer Bill Volosin said Aurora’s Board of Education will determine how to proceed. In the meantime, all students will continue attending the schools they do now, and a new high school is at least temporarily off the books.
Though she has no influence or authority over city schools, Aurora Mayor Ann Womer Benjamin suggested that the bond issue’s price tag and its timing may have been problematic.
“It was a very big bond issue and was on the heels of revaluations of Aurora’s real estate, which really hit people hard, so the timing perhaps wasn’t the best,” she said.
School levy failures
When school districts need money, they have no choice but to ask voters to approve school levies. Racking up rejections can mean running low on cash, or even running out of it. Ohio law does not let school districts run on red ink. The state auditor’s office designates districts that submit scary five-year financial forecasts as being in fiscal caution, fiscal watch or fiscal emergency.
Each designation carries a higher degree of state oversight, the worst being when local control is lost altogether and state officials slash staff, services and course offerings to the bare minimum.
Ravenna City Schools
Voters in the Ravenna City School District haven’t approved new operating money since 2005, and on Nov. 5 they rejected, for the fourth consecutive balloting round, a measure that would have brought the district $1.57 million in fiscal year 2025 and $3.15 million annually in FY 2026, 2027 and 2028.
The state auditor’s office has already designated Ravenna schools as being in fiscal caution, requiring Interim Superintendent Ben Ribelin and his team to meet regularly with officials from the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce. Budget decisions and district spending take center stage during these discussions, with the idea being to keep the district from sinking even further into fiscal distress.
Prior to the November election, Ravenna schools Treasurer Kristen Plagemen said that if Issue 33 failed, she feared the school district’s budget would be awash in shortfalls and the district could be fiscally downgraded.
Though disappointed in the results, Ribelin maintained a sense of optimism.
“This is the highest ‘yes’ total we’ve ever had, and we’re closing the gap each time over the last four elections,” he said. “I’m proud of the work that our committee and staff did to work on this, and I’m proud that we’re going to continue to try and provide a quality education while we’re being fiscally responsible.”
School officials will continue to hold regular budget and spending meetings with the ODEW and will try to obtain revenue through grants and savings, he said.
In the past three years, the district has eliminated more than 30 staffing positions, eliminated high school bussing as of the 2024-25 academic year, limited extracurricular activities and stipends for the adults who oversee them, and consolidated several administrative and secretarial positions.
Further cuts are a possibility.
“I would hope not, but we have to look at every single piece that we can, including our facilities, including our spending, including our transportation, including our staffing. We’ll look at everything that we can to come up with a plan to move forward,” he said.
Ribelin said he plans to meet with the district’s Board of Education to determine what to do next. The most likely option is to place the same or a similar levy on the next ballot and hope for the best, he said.
“We’ve passed no new operating money since 2005,” he said. “It’s been 19 years. Consider what it would be like not to have a raise for 19 years, and whether or not you’d be able to survive.”
Until Ravenna voters approve a levy, the district will do what it’s always done, he said.
“We’ll continue to try and do the best we can here to educate our students and garner community support along the way,” he said. “Hopefully, we can change people’s minds.”
Mogadore Local Schools
Voters in the Mogadore Local School District rejected Issue 38, a 5-year, 5.9-mill additional levy for operating expenses. Last year, the state auditor’s office placed the district in fiscal caution.
The Village of Mogadore straddles Portage and Summit counties. The district serves 220 students in the portion of the village that is in Portage County. The remaining 71% of Mogadore schools’ students reside in the portion of Mogadore that is in Summit County.
Mogadore schools have reduced bussing to state minimums and cut overall expenses by 5%. Six teaching and tutoring positions have been eliminated since May 2023, and the district expects to cut 5 to 13 more at the end of this school year.
Mogadore schools Superintendent John Knapp did not respond to The Portager’s request for comment.
Wendy DiAlesandro is a former Record Publishing Co. reporter and contributing writer for The Portager.