By Howard Wilkinson
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Increasing costs and declining or stagnant revenues - with no help in sight from the state or federal governments - have forced 18 Southwest Ohio school districts to fill the March primary ballot with operating levies and bond issues - some of them large and costly.

"We don't have a choice," said superintendent Scott Inskeep of the Reading Community School District. On March 2, voters there will decide on an 8.5-mill continuing operating levy that would cost the owner of a $100,000 house $250 a year.

Many local school administrators expect that, by the end of next year, nearly half of Ohio's 612 public school districts will have gone to the voters to ask for more money.

The 18 school districts with 19 ballot issues will be the most in a primary election in the four Southwest Ohio counties since there were 17 on the June 1992 ballot.

In Hamilton, Butler, Warren and Clermont counties, some school districts are asking for more money to build and maintain buildings. Most, however, are putting issues in front of the voters that administrators say will merely maintain the status quo.

Some of the largest increases being asked for are in growing, affluent suburban communities such as Butler County's Lakota Local School District, where voters will be asked to approve a continuing levy and an improvement levy that would cost the owner of a $150,000 home $536 a year.

"A lot of districts are in the same boat," said John Pennycuff, president of the Winton Woods school board, which will ask voters to pass a $4.4 million levy in March. "Without going to the voters for help, a lot of districts are looking at deep, serious cuts."

But antitax activists are likely to organize efforts to defeat some of the levies, saying that school administrators tend to look to voters first to bail them out, instead of going to them as a last resort.

"Almost every one of these districts has increased spending more than twice the rate of inflation," said Christopher Finney, a Cincinnati lawyer who helped found Citizens Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST), the area's most visible antitax organization.

"The already beleaguered taxpayer is always the one to pick up the bill for wasteful spending."

Rita McEachen of Symmes Township is the parent of a Loveland High graduate and pays Loveland school taxes.

"I don't think (the levy) is necessary. I believe Loveland has money in reserves," she said. "I don't think any more money should be filtered in. The schools should use what they have."

She points out that the city will be getting additional tax revenues because a lot of new home construction has resulted in expensive homes - $300,000 to $400,000 in value.

Plus, she said, the city has sought and gotten other levies in recent years. "I've voted for it in the past, but I won't be voting for it this year," she said.

Longtime Liberty Township resident Linda Brunner said she is opposed to Lakota's levy. Since she moved into the district 31 years ago, her annual property taxes have increased from about $600 to $1,610. Most of that - about $1,190 - goes to Lakota schools.

"A lot of times families move into the district, pass levies and then leave. That leaves us holding the bill," Brunner said. "People cannot go on like this. Something has got to give. People are going to move out. It's especially difficult for the elderly."

Local districts, however, will depend on homeowners with children in their school systems who fear that a financially strapped school district will mean a subpar education for their children.

Linda Stichtenoth, whose son, Philip is a senior at Winton Woods High School, said she intends to vote for her district's combination levy that would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $274.09 annually.

The district in recent years has become more "parent-friendly," said Stichtenoth, citing efforts to reach out to parent volunteers for participation on committees and projects.

"We have always supported school levies because we support public education."

Jamie Green of West Chester Township said she will support the Lakota levy because "it is a good step for the future. "The bad thing is that it takes more millage than we are used to."

School administrators say they need the new funding because public schools in Ohio have taken some heavy blows this year. Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and the Ohio General Assembly have cut funding twice this year and federal mandated programs, such as President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education reform package, are not being funded at nearly the level that was promised.

"There's not an educator in Hamilton County who doesn't believe in the concept of 'No Child Left Behind,' but it does little good when the money is not there to fund it," said Kevin Boys, superintendent of the Loveland City School District.

And despite the fact that the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled four times that Ohio's public school funding system is unconstitutional and needs to be replaced, Taft and the Legislature have yet to come up with a new plan.

Twenty years ago, Pennycuff said, Kentucky had a court case similar to the one that resulted in Ohio's school funding formula being declared unconstitutional.

"Unlike in Ohio, in Kentucky they got on with the job of fixing it and there was a massive reformation of the schools, in a state with far less resources than Ohio," Pennycuff said. "I don't get it."

Alan Hutchinson, treasurer of the Lakota School District, said Ohio school districts continue to struggle to keep up with rising costs as long as the current property tax-based system in place.

"It will take a whole new system," Hutchinson said. "Throw out the bath water. Start from scratch."

Glossary

• Mill: The basic unit for computing property taxes. A mill is one-tenth of a penny. A mill produces $1 in tax revenues for every $1,000 of assessed property value.

• "Inside'' millage: The Ohio constitution allows up to 10 mills to be imposed by the county without a vote and distributed to various bodies in the county, including schools.

• "Outside'' millage: The operating millage approved by the voters.

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Contributor Sue Kiesewetter and Enquirer reporters Denise Smith Amos and Michael D. Clark contributed. E-mail hwilkinson@enquirer.com