NAPOLEON, Ohio — Napoleon Area City Schools hope voters approve a new operating levy on Election Day.
School leaders said with some work on their other funding streams, the price tag for taxpayers won't be as big as the current levy asking price.
Napoleon Area City School District superintendent Dr. Erik Belcher said the district is currently operating under a budget deficit.
To keep the budget relatively balanced, ten teaching positions have been eliminated through attrition.
The last time the district asked voters for new operating money was in 2013.
"80% of our costs here at Napoleon Area City Schools are with staffing," said Belcher. "So if we're going to save money, we look at those every year."
To get out of this deficit, the district has placed a 3.9-mill operating levy on Tuesday's ballot.
If approved, the levy will generate a little more than $1.6 million a year for five years.
Now while this levy is a 3.9-mill operating levy, the district has been busy, having refinanced a current bond issue eliminating 1.6-mills from that bond.
If this operating levy is approved, it is in turn only going to raise the total tax base here by 2.3-mills.
"What the reduction of the 1.6-mills, it will more look like on that $100K home, more like $80 a year with that," said Belcher.
School leaders said that every year the district is in a deficit, the problem compounds on itself, along with more time for inflation to keep making things more expensive.
So they hope their voting base approves the measure and helps to continue moving the district forward.
"We can continue to build off of the momentum we've got going on in the school district in terms of building new programs and things like that," said Ryan Crandall, the President of the Napoleon Area City School Board. "When you're operating in your rainy day funds, you can't do that."
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