PERRYSBURG – If voters want the facts about the proposed school levy, they should go to the source and not depend on social media.
“I’m tired of the blizzard of BS that we’re hearing. People are not taking the time to find the facts. Facts are not found in social media,” said board of education member Lori Reffert at Monday’s meeting.
Superintendent Tom Hosler addressed some misinformation circulating in the district.
“I think there’s been some things that have been said about the additional cost of this levy,” he said.
When we hear things in the community that this levy will cost taxpayers an additional $164 million, that information is false, he said.
“We’re talking about money that is not new dollars, those are dollars that are already there that are that we are replacing,” he said.
Taxpayers are currently paying $13.5 million under the levy that expires in December. The proposed levy seeks to renew that amount and increase it by $2 million each year starting in the second year.
Hosler compared it to a base salary of $13.5 million with a raise of $2 million each year.
He explained the real cost of the district’s eight-year incremental levy that is on the Nov. 5 ballot.
Residents are currently paying $28.44 per month per $100,000 in home value for the 2019 levy that is expiring at the end of this year.
(Editor’s note: $100,000 is used to make the math easier to determine the costs of a home valued at $200,000, $300,000 and up.)
If the new incremental levy is approved next month, residents will continue to pay that amount in the first year.
In the second year, residents will pay an additional maximum $4.20 per month – now $32.64 per month — on a home valued at $100,000.
In the third year, another maximum $4.20 per month should be added, then another $4.20 on top of that for each year forward until a taxpayer is paying $57.84 per month for a home valued at $100,000 in the final year.
Hosler also answered some questions he said are being heard about the levy.
• People in apartments don’t pay property taxes. The apartment owners do pay school district taxes.
• There are custodians earning over $100,000. Starting annual salary for a full-time custodian is $40,970.
• School districts receive the biggest slice of the property tax pie. In Ohio, on average 60%-70% of property taxes go to public schools. Due to House Bill 920, even as property values rise as a community grows, the amount of revenue collected by schools remains at voter-approved levels.
• Per pupil expenditures are $1,1001 below the state average; administration expenditures per pupil is $173 below the state average; and the district is well below the state average, at 154, in how many students are served per administrator.
• Perrysburg Schools’ superintendent contract does not require residency in the district. Ohio Revised Code also prohibits residency mandates.
“This isn’t a ‘I don’t want to live in Perrysburg’ kind of moment for me,” Hosler said.
He said he bought his first home in Perrysburg in 1993 then he took a principal’s role in Michigan’s Irish Hills. The 178-mile round-trip commute from Perrysburg was unsustainable so the family relocated to Sylvania.
He was named Perrysburg Schools’ superintendent in 2007, and they listed their home for sale to move back to Perrysburg.
Then the housing market crashed, and the house sat and sat, and then he didn’t want to relocate his children who were in high school. He asked the board to remove the residency requirement.
“I live in Perrysburg, and I sleep in Sylvania,” Hosler said. “At the end of the day, it has nothing to do with what our students need.”
Other districts that have superintendents that don’t reside in their district include Lake, Otsego, Rossford, Ottawa Hills, Springfield, and Maumee, he said.
“People have made it personal,” Hosler said about levy opposition.
Reffert said she was appalled that Hosler had to explain why he didn’t live in the district.
“If somebody has a beef with the superintendent or with another administrator … it’s a shame that they’re going to take it out on the kids,” she said.
“What your zip code is hasn’t mattered to this board or boards prior for over a decade,” said President Eric Benington.
Hosler also outlined some of the cost-saving measures in the district, including Perrysburg sharing non-public transportation with Rossford Schools and sharing gifted services administrator with Anthony Wayne Schools; transitioning from diesel to propane buses; and moving district-wide fertilizer, weed control, painting, carpeting and snow removal in house.
Perrysburg spends less per student than similar districts while achieving more, he said.
If the levy fails, the district will lose $13.5 million each year, starting Jan. 1, if nothing is done to replace it, Hosler said.
“What we can agree on is it will negatively impact our students,” he said.
Since there’s been so much discussion in the community about our revenue and expenses, board member Susan Rowland Miller said she spent time looking at the 20 comparable districts.
“Our we too expensive, are we over staff?” she asked. “We are similar in almost every metric.”
The difference was our cost per pupil is below our similar districts by more than $800, she said.
“The bottom line is it’s a choice: Do we want to continue to provide the quality education that we are providing our students right now or are we willing to cut significant amounts of money knowing that we will not be providing that quality education anymore,” Rowland Miller said.
“This is a choice about quality education or not,” she said.
