By Bill Bush, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – The Columbus Board of Education went with people, programs and repairs over new buildings Thursday, sending the smallest of four recommended levy requests to voters in November while jettisoning the most recent update of its carefully crafted building plan.
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“More always beats nothing,” said board member W. Shawna Gibbs, in reaction to the final decision.
District voters will see a ballot question this fall to add 6.92 new mills, which would add about $242 a year to the property tax bill per $100,000 of house valuation. That would be an 18 percent increase in the taxes that the school district collects from residential property owners. The new tax would add up to a 14.1 percent increase in school property taxes on commercial property.
Board Vice President Michael Cole said after the unanimous 7-0 vote that the request is reasonable and would stabilize district finances for the next five years. “It’s now time for us to move forward,” Cole said.
Of the 6.92 mills approved for the fall ballot, 5.58 mills would pay for an expansion of general operations over the next five years. The district’s 8,800-person staff would grow by 325 people, a 3.7 percent increase that would include prekindergarten teachers, social workers, school nurses and others.
The remaining 1.34 mills would be to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance — new roofs, parking lots, painting — that the district says needs to be addressed across its aging array of facilities. The plan is to issue $225 million in bonds to fund most of the work, paid back over decades by 0.84 of a mill. The other half a mill would raise an ongoing $4.4 million a year for maintenance.