Residents of Huber Heights have mixed feelings about the school district asking for more money following the district’s announcement that it plans to pull a 9.95-mill levy off the May ballot.

Superintendent Sue Gunnell said Monday that she plans to recommend to the school board at a special meeting March 7 to withdraw the levy from the May 7 ballot. Instead, she expects to recommend to the board in late April the placement of a 5.95-mill operating levy on the August 6 ballot.

Taking the 9.95-mill levy off in May is because of a potential increase in state funding, school officials said.

Huber Heights has not passed an operating levy since 2005. Voters have defeated three straight requests for new operating funds — the most recent an 8-mill levy in November. By placing a levy on the August ballot, it gives the district another opportunity in November if it fails, Gunnell has said.

“I’m done voting for them until they get the bleeding under control,” said Steve Blair, who has a child in the seventh grade and another one who graduated last year. “They can cut football. They can cut all that stuff. My kid is there to learn. Threats are idle to me.”

Blair, who has lived in Huber Heights since 1995, said that school officials know a May levy wouldn’t pass with sequestration looming for the Air Force, and that a better chance exists in August when sequestration is nearly over.

“Everybody’s robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it’s caught up,” Blair said. “Huber Heights shouldn’t have to ask for levies ever with the corporations and retail establishments in our city.”

A 5.95-mill levy in August would generate nearly $4 million annually and cost an owner of a $100,000 home an additional $15.18 a month. If the 9.95-mill operating levy would have passed in May, it would have generated $6.7 million annually and cost an owner of a $100,000 home an additional $25.29 a month.

The district will move forward with $6.4 million in cuts that the board approved in January, which includes the elimination of 108.5 positions and an increase in pay-to-participate fees.

Davana Nighswander, who has three sons in the district, said she will vote for the levy.

“Either way, the levy needs to be passed,” she said. “If we can’t get it together, the area is going to decline.”

Nighswander’s children play football, and she said she will leave it up to them if they want to play, in spite of a $750 participation fee per student, per sport, with no family cap.

“There are a lot of residents in Huber Heights who don’t know what the levy is for and why they want to have another levy, so they’re voting no,” Nighswander said. “The kids in the end suffer the most.”

Alice Anderson, who has owned property in Huber Heights since 1982, said she will not vote for the levy in August. She also owns a home near Fresno, Calif., and she said she paid $3,600 in property taxes here compared to $1,700 in California in 2012.

“It didn’t pass last fall and it’s not going to pass now,” said Anderson, who had one child go through the school system. “They need to manage their funds just like we need to manage our funds.”

Anderson cited the city’s proposal to build an $18 million music center after devoting $7 million last year to the Kroger Aquatic Center at The Heights and Eichelberger Amphitheater.

“I see all this waste of money for the music center when we built the amphitheater,” Anderson said. “No way they’re going to get this money. I am for the city, children, educational system, but they (city and schools) need to prove to us they are wise with the income they get.”