Fairbanks is returning to the ballot this year, a second attempt to pass its proposed tax levy.
In December, the board of education voted to put the combination property and income tax levy back on the ballot this spring after the measure failed in November.
Following Election Day, board members stressed the importance of the levy’s passage at the regular board meeting.
“I personally think it’s important we put this back on,” President Derek Nicol said in November. “I just know we need these facilities as our student roster continues to grow.”
Superintendent Adham Schirg said going back on the ballot is challenging but something the district has to do.
“Ultimately, these are the community’s schools and because they are the community’s schools, we need to take steps for the future of the district,” he said. “Many of the issues that this master facility plan worked to address we still need to resolve even if it didn’t pass.”
Chief among them is the issue of capacity. Like other districts in the county, Fairbanks is seeing the growth from residential development and that led to its largest ever kindergarten class at 84 students. The district also anticipates growing pre-school classes, which suggests a trend of larger class-sizes in all of the schools in the coming years.
“We continue to monitor the growth everywhere in the area but particularly down in Jerome Township,” Schirg said, where the area has a series of planned residential developments in the works.
He added that it’s the district’s goal to be “proactive, not reactive.”
The school’s two-phase plan, approved in December of 2022, is the blueprint to handle that change coming to the district.
Officials implemented the plan going into 2023, culminating in the groundbreaking of the first phase of the plan in October, a 7,000-square-foot addition to the elementary school.
“For phase one, it is being paid for with current general and permanent improvement funds. That’s $3 million,” Schirg said. “And it was really important that we showed the community, the taxpayers that these plans would be paid for with a combination of funds, not just new money.”
The overall project total is $37 million, so new money is necessary, which is what the ballot initiative hopes to rectify.
Though one of the levies passed – making the current .25% permanent improvement income tax continuing – the larger of the two didn’t.
That measure, a .25% income tax and 1.85-mill property tax combination levy, will now be back on the ballot in March. If passed, it will help raise the additional $23 million.
Schirg said the board arrived at that funding structure with input from the community and said it matched the district’s focus on being good stewards of the taxpayers’ money.
He also said the March timeframe is important because it coincides with the district’s participation in the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.
“In partnership with the OFCC, we’re part of the Expedited Local Partnership Program and with that, you have to raise the local share within 12 months,” Schirg said. “March is right in that window. If the 12 month window shuts, you have to start all over with the OFCC.”
According to the OFCC website, “the money spent by the district on the distinct portion is credited against the local share of the entire master plan projects.”
“We have a responsibility to partner with the OFCC so we can get those rebates back into the school district,” Schirg said, adding that the board’s goal is to have a flexible plan and not have a “boom or bust” approach. “We don’t want to over-burden our taxpayers. We know it’s a big ask and that’s why we’re trying to approach it as responsibly as possible.”
Despite the outcome in March, the district will move forward with phase one, which should be finished and ready for the start if the 2024-25 school year in August.