Thursday, November 04, 1999
$20 M ax to fall on Cincinnati schools
Officials seek reasons for levy failure
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Tuesday's defeat of Cincinnati Public Schools' proposed $24 million levy will mean up to $20 million in budget cuts in the 2000-01 school year, Superintendent Steven Adamowski said Wednesday.
One day after voters rejected the 4.5-mill levy by nearly 2,800 votes, campaign supporters studied precinct reports to figure out what went wrong, while teachers and students showed up for class wondering what more they would lose to budget woes next year.
Mr. Adamowski said he aims to keep the cuts to central services — which include transportation, technology, food services, maintenance, testing and personnel — to preserve per-pupil spending, which covers textbooks, teachers and other school-based services. The district now spends $7,700 per pupil on its 45,600 students.
He expects to recommend cuts to school board members in January. The levy's defeat also means the district won't restore a $180-per-pupil cut it made last spring; the levy would have restored that cut, covered inflation and paid for building improvements.
“We will not grind the system down to the point where large numbers of our schools are unsuccessful,” he said. “We may do fewer things. We may do them smaller. But we don't give up at the first instance of discouragement. School reform is a cause. This was a disappointment, but this is not the end of the story.”
The district probably will put the issue back before voters in the March primary, Mr. Adamowski said. Even if the levy passes next March or No vember, cuts would still be needed because the district couldn't collect money until January 2001.
The levy's defeat prompted speculation among many parents about how much more administrators would carve from already stripped schools.
“It's frustrating that education isn't a priority for people,” said Lori Strait, a Westwood mother of two whose children attend Carson Montessori School.
Mrs. Strait had hoped the levy's passage would enable Carson to reinstate structured gym classes, abandoned after last spring's cuts. Instead, she fears the school will lose all “extras” beyond the core academic subjects, such as art and music teachers.
That prospect kept teachers talking about the levy's defeat Wednesday, said Jim Engel, a biology teacher at Taft High School.
Many teachers remain frustrated about last spring's cuts, so the threat of additional cuts spurred cynicism.
“We're already as low as we can go; how much worse could it get?” Mr. Engel said.
Campaign supporters Tuesday blamed bad weather for the low voter turnout. But Wednesday, Brewster Rhoads, the Mount Washington political consultant hired to head the campaign, acknowledged that supporters simply failed to get their message across.
“Clearly, we'll have to do a better job of reaching those voters,” he said.
And clearly, it wasn't an anti-tax sentiment that doomed the district's levy.
Two levies in Hamilton County — one for people who have mental retardation and developmental disabilities and another for health and hospitalization — won by wide margins. Statewide, 67 percent of school levies passed, up from the five-year average of 56 percent, according to the Ohio Department of Education.
The school levy failed with 38,190 votes, or 52 percent, against it and 35,395, or 48 percent, for it. Precinct reports showed:
• Residents of the suburban neighborhoods that are part of the district voted overwhelmingly against the levy, 66 percent to 34 percent. About 65 of the district's 479 precincts are suburban; they include parts of Green Township, Silverton, Anderson Township, Delhi Township and Amberley Village.
• Within the city, voters approved the levy by a margin of 150 votes.
• Predominantly black wards showed the strongest support, 62 percent to 38 percent. Those wards also had some of the highest voter turnout. Evanston, for example, had a 40 percent turnout, compared with 33 percent citywide.
• West side voters opposed the levy, 57 percent to 43 percent. In Westwood, the margin was even larger, with 59 percent opposed and 41 percent in favor.
Tom Brinkman, who fought the levy as founder of the Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), said voters rejected the levy because they didn't believe supporters' message that the district's dismal achievement was improving.
Mr. Brinkman of Mount Lookout said he plans to start raising money soon to fight the district's efforts to pass a levy next year. COAST spent $20,000 this fall against the levy, compared to the $300,000 levy supporters spent to tout their cause.
Howard Wilkinson and Michael Hawthorne contributed to this report.
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