Recordpub.com - Streetsboro schools seek levy OK

By Miles Jung-Kilbreath
Record-Courier staff writer
The Streetsboro school district could purchase new school buses, musical instruments and renovate school parking lots and roofs if voters pass Issue 10, a 5.1-mill school levy Nov. 6, providing about $1.5 million a year for operational expenses and $600,000 a year for permanent improvements, according to Superintentendent Tom Giovangnoli.
Recently, Giovangnoli presented the board of education with his proposed two-year spending plan for $1.2 million the district could receive in permanent improvement funds through the proposed tax's first two years of collection.
The board would make any final decisions on how the permanent improvement money is spent.
Giovangnoli broke down his proposal into two bi-annual payments of $300,000 that it would receive from the levy in February and July each year. He also said that depending on how the city grows in the coming years, the district could see additional funds from the property taxes on new construction, which would be higher than homeowners tax at the start of January 2008.
The proposed schedule, according to Giovangnoli, was created based on the needs for improvements at schools, so some problems, like a leaky roof in the high school library, are not addressed.
Giovangnoli said the additional permanent improvement money could help the district purchase new school buses; purchase new technology, which the schools now receive only through donations; maintain parking lots; and purchase other materials with an expected life of five years.
The major school improvements Giovangnoli proposed include a $150,000 project to rebuild the high school's parking lot with money from July 2008 tax revenue. The project would include rebuilding the lot from the base up and installing new drains and sidewalks along the high school, he said.
Other school improvements would include having most of the Wait Primary School roof replaced for $100,000 from July 2008 tax receipts; $60,000 to rebuild the middle school parking lost with Feb. 2009 tax revenue; and $100,000 for removing asbestos from Wait School with July 2009 funds.
The proposal also recommends spending $150,000 for two new buses in both February 2008 and 2009, totaling four buses for $300,000.
Giovangnoli recommended the district spend $100,000 in February 2008 and July 2009 and $15,000 in July 2008, totaling $215,000, to upgrade technology around the district. He said that the district's computers were once "the best in Portage County," but they have become outdated over the last three years and are now in "bad shape."
"One hundred thousand dollars (in February 2008) may not be enough to get us back up there, but it's a start," Giovangnoli said.
The district' s band program could see new instruments through the proposal, costing a total $70,000 worth of purchases over two years. Giovangnoli said many of the district's instruments date back to 1961. It would cost around $100,000 to replace all the old instruments in the district, he said.
"Forty-five years is enough for (using those instruments)," he said.
Other proposed purchases over the next two years include: $25,000 for a new snow plowing truck; $50,000 for a new dump truck; $30,000 for a second new truck; $40,000, for new student desks; $50,000 for new maintenance and building equipment; and $10,000 for ice prevention gutters at Henry Defer Intermediate School.
According to Puster, if the levy had been approved, residents would have paid only approximately $5 more per month in taxes for a $100,000 home, or approximately $60 per year.