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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > January > 29 > Entry
School levy: Board goes all in
I’m not a big gambler, but I like to play from time to time. Especially now, in Catholic fish fry season. I’ll take a set amount with me — never more than $30 — and plan on giving it all away for the cause. If I walk out of there with a few bucks, well, just lucky that time I guess. I’ll give it back next time. That’s my whole strategy and not carrying more cash than I planned to lose helps limit my risk of a big loss.
I’ve been thinking about gambling this week, and not just because I’ve been to two fish frys already this month.
On Thursday, we watched as the Dayton school board made a huge wager. Together the board members pushed all their chips to the center of the table and and went “all in” for the May 8 primary election.
Most of the debate here at Get on the Bus since the news of the 16 mill levy broke has been about what the board has or has not accomplished and whether it deserves voter support. For a moment, lets put aside those questions.
Let’s accept for the sake of argument that everything the board says is correct — that its done a good job improving student learning over the past five years, that it has managed the district’s finances with all appropriate care and that it truly needs the 16 mills it is asking. Let’s even agree with Gail Littlejohn’s assertion that passing this levy would make a measurable difference in the workforce skills of the city in the near future.
Suppose all that is true, everything the school board is arguing. There’s still a sticky question about this levy that remains. Was a 16 mill levy the right move?
Or is it too much? That is the single biggest question I’ve been asked over the past week.
There was another way the school board could have gone. It could have asked for a smaller levy, perhaps on the order of 9 or 10 mills. This would have required cuts and perhaps meant another levy in a couple years. And some observers wonder if it would not have been easier for voters to stomach.
But the board decided to be bold. A budget of $182 million is what Superintendent Percy Mack said it takes to keep their program intact. That meant $30 million a year and 16 mills additional taxes — $490 more a year for a $100,000 house.
And with that, the board pushed all its chips to the center of the table.
That’s because the May 8 levy MUST pass if the district is to avoid deep cuts. How deep? Take a look at this list from October. Even after all those cuts, the board would still have to find $12 million more cuts! Other possible targets — eliminating more sports and extra curriculars, fewer high school electives, dropping high school busing and all but eliminating elementary music programs and adjunct music and art instructors at Stivers School for the Arts.
If the May levy fails, the board have would seek a levy again, probably in November. Assuming that levy passes, the money would come too late to have much impact in 2007-08. The upcoming school year threatens to become a lost year.
So that’s the risk the board has taken. Is it a good risk? That depends on the politics and its very hard to say.
Asking voters for what is really needed takes guts and I’ve seen a lot of other districts try to take the shortcut with a smaller than needed levy and pay for it down the line. If this levy passes, the district should be financially secure for the next five years with a program the school board believes can make a real difference to kids and, ultimately, for the city’s workforce.
But even if all that is true, a levy of this size could still be the wrong move if it simply is too much for voters to punch the yes button. Board members have a little more than 90 days to persuade voters in two ways — that the levy is worth it because the schools need and deserve the money and that, yes, you can afford to give this much.
(Image credit: www.pokerplayernewspaper.com)
Permalink | Comments (15) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Comments
By another DPS teacher
February 1, 2007 9:14 PM | Link to this
I don’t know why supporting the levy should be such a difficult concept for so many people. When the facts are presented, an intelligent person should be able to siphon out the emotions and acknowledge the need for the levy to pass. As “oldprof” has stated, there hasn’t been any new or additional money received let alone requested. The money that was last approved is in 1993 dollars with no adjustment for inflation. I can’t imagine trying to support my family on that same money. For those who believe the administration is top heavy and that a “No” vote will force the board to “trim the administrative fat”, you are in for a surprise. The board will not trim administrative costs. The cost- trimming will come from the school buildings/classrooms. Building funds will be slashed- books won’t be replaced, copy paper and other supplies won’t be ordered, workbook orders will be “misplaced”, custodial work will be cut or eliminated, building repairs will be “postponed”. They already proposed eliminating middle school extra-curricular activities and high school busing. Parents complain now that building administrators don’t deal with discipline problems fast enough, if at all. If the district eliminates assistant principals, there will be even more problems the principals can’t deal with. I already spend a lot of my own money buying things for the kids and the classroom. How many employees in other professions routinely spend money out of their own pocket to do their job? I have been a DPS teacher for more than 25 years. For the first 10-15 years, the money I spent went for the extras. Now a lot of it goes for basics. Things have been very tight for teachers for a lot of years. Passing the levy might not make things better, but at least they probably wouldn’t get any worse.By Mary
February 1, 2007 7:32 AM | Link to this
“old prof”, am I missing something in simple math, or did the student enrollment go way down while school funds stayed the same - at least for the local portion of the taxes from property?By Oldprof
January 31, 2007 8:56 AM | Link to this
Simple math. No new operating levy in Dayton for 16 years now. Ohio’s constitution says that the dollars you paid in 1993 for schools never go up. The operating budget for the schools today is what is was in 1995—back when gasoline was going under $1 per gallon. The school board is now recommending we pay 1 mill per year since the last levy; that doesn’t even match the rate of inflation. While I think an earned income tax would be a better choice, I’m not going to whimper like a self-centered objectivist if I have to pay an extra $1.60 for every thousand dollars of value in my house.By To Steve:
January 31, 2007 7:43 AM | Link to this
You are correct, sir, to say move. But what about the people who can’t sell their houses to afford to move to another city…like those people who live in the lower east end, and the people who live in west and northwest Dayton? Those people are on fixed and/or limited income. They would be lucky to get $45,000 - $70,000 for their houses…IF they could find a buyer. And if they did, where would they be able to afford to move to? So I guess it’s okay with you to impose tax increases on those people until they can’t afford taxes any more and either have to give their homes away or be foreclosed on? And, can someone answer this for me, please? Didn’t the supreme court rule on this four times that it is unconstitutional to rely on property taxes to fund public schools?? To Iou, if you really think that we are providing a quality education for $11,000.00 per student, then I invite you to visit the ODE website and look at the report cards for the Dayton Public Schools. Then, I invite you to look at the demographics of the children attending the public schools…then look at where the administrators, teachers, teachers coaches, and all the other fluff jobs that taxpayers pay for live. I would almost guarantee that there are less than 10% of the children’s parents who work at jobs and receive the same benefits and salaries that all of those school employees do. But, in the long run taxpayers will fund the shcools anyway…when Dayton has a small percentage of property owners who actually live in the city…and most of the properties are rentals…and most of the rents are subsidised…and the landlords just raise the rents to pay for the tax increases…vicious circle…isn’t it?By Mary
January 31, 2007 7:02 AM | Link to this
“null”, many would probably agree on the sensitivity of the term “rape”. However, in defense of Steve, there are other definitions of the term in my old Readers’ Digest dictionary including “to plunder or sack a city”. The term is apparently derived from the Latin word “rapere, to seize” as is a related word “rapacious” meaning “grasping, greedy”. No matter how the term is intended to be defined, many would say it is about power.By null
January 30, 2007 7:51 PM | Link to this
Steve, you have been fortunate not to have experienced rape yourself or through a loved one, because if you had you would have never used the term “raped” to describe paying higher taxes. A rape a horrible, devastating thing to happen to any person. There is no comparison.By Steve
January 30, 2007 11:01 AM | Link to this
Bottom line is: the taxpaper is being raped! If you don’t like it get out of Dayton (and any other district) that is abusing the taxpaper. There are much better places to live with MUCH lower taxes! Voting no and sometimes rejecting tax levies, does no good, as most districts just keep putting them on the ballot again and again, until they get their way. Again, just move out as many citizens are doing!By taxpayer
January 30, 2007 10:41 AM | Link to this
You cannot compare the cost per pupil of public education with private school tuition. Private schools pick and choose the children who are already the easiest to educate. They don’t deal with children with special needs or behavioral problems. They don’t deal with the state and federal bureacracy and unfunded mandates that public schools must comply with. Also, most private schools rely on fundraising in addition to tuition to cover costs. Studies show that private schools do not do any better job teaching students when you control for demographics such as race, income, special needs.By dave
January 30, 2007 10:34 AM | Link to this
Well, if the levy passes you’ll see even more bloating in the administration. You’ll see much more rapid wasting of money, like the giveaway of CTC just because, well because City of Dayton wanted it! You’ll see less for the kids relative to the amount spent now. For Mary: the private schools and charter schools don’t educate the handicapped and special needs kids. The get to pick their homogeneous group and educate them. The charter schools were going to perform miracles in education at no cost practically; we got failing test scores and lots of money wasted in charters and others. Get over the idea that education costs money and people have unions. Would it be cheaper to just close the public schools and quit funding the illegal charter schools since the state’s job is public education funding, not charter school funding, and not subsidy to parochial schools.By Rich
January 30, 2007 7:46 AM | Link to this
Lots of money to ask a community that ranks as one of the ten poorest communities in the state of Ohio.By School Supporter
January 29, 2007 10:54 PM | Link to this
Just a note to support the board’s claims, here’s a review of the DPS status from the Williams’ years, subsequently addressed: “Strategic Support Teams found that the district�s mission lacks clarity. It generally suffers from four fundamental problems: no one can recite it; no one knows what it means; no one can tell from it what the district�s priorities are; and no one would be able to tell if the mission was ever being met. It is not even clear that the mission statement is tagged to a school system per se. In short, the mission statement of the Dayton Public Schools lacks coherence and the ability to rally people around shared goals.”By lou
January 29, 2007 10:52 PM | Link to this
Do we need that much? Well, I will tell you what I see in the buildigns. Are classes are at the max. in some rooms we do not even have enough chairs since this last round of cuts. We have cut almost all electives. This leaves the students without those courses that allow them to grow into individuals. The building level administrators are working 18 hr days just to keep up with paper work. Yes we need it. The next question, do we deserve it? I don’t know of any other students that have worked as hard as ours to raise our scores. YES, they deserve it. Last, can we afford it? $50,000 a yr to keep in prison, $11,000 a yr to educate. How can we not afford it.By null
January 29, 2007 9:56 PM | Link to this
Here is the problem about the school board’s request. Education needs to be teacher based. Kids in early 20th century Ohio farmhouses learned far more than most of us know right now. The administration is ridiculously top heavy and all the so-called innovations delay the requirement that INTELLECTUAL FOCUS AND RESPONSIBILITY is what allows any student to learn anything. Here is another problem. The school board, although they deny it, was ready to trade the current CTC to Dayton for the Tech Town and old Kettering Field development that they keep talking about, and in exchange they were going to get Triangle Park. Then they were apparently prepared to dump another series of multiple millions into a new environmentally disastrous, illegal and ridiculous new CTC school. Now where do you suppose the money for that little walk in the park would have been found? Here is my idea: I will vote for the levy if all the members of the School Board agree that they will resign the next day, no questions asked, no reservations of rights. And then let us not be hasty in our desire to put people back into these seats just yet. It just might be we will be able to let our teachers teach and run their schools and we will forget all about administrative redundancies like the School Board.By Dayton Business Man
January 29, 2007 1:27 PM | Link to this
Scott, After looking at the proposed reductions, a lot of the cuts don’t look that bad. In fact, it looks like the district-in some cases-would run more efficiently. Which brings me to my question, do they really need the entire amount or could we go for a smaller amount? It’s a big gamble.By Mary
January 29, 2007 1:04 PM | Link to this
So with a budget of around $180 million and just shy of 16,000 students, that would mean it takes over $11,000 per student per year for public education. This does not include the additional investment in facilities. The big question is, are the students and the taxpayers really getting $11,000 worth of education each year per student. Isn’t that similar to private school tuitions with much smaller class sizes and more personal attention? If some parents got that much money per child, they could probably afford to stay home and give their children a quality education themselves with some outside sources and private tutors from time to time. Out of that $11,000 per student, some are probably getting much less as far as education quality and attention and some are probably getting more invested in their education. Of course the predominant chunk of money goes into teacher pay and benefits, administrator pay and benefits, etc. An interesting issue is that the generous health benefits afforded to those working in education and other heavily unionized fields are not taxed. Other workers and taxpayers pay much more for their health benefits. That disparity came up in the recent state of the union address.