Marietta City Schools Board of Education held its regular meeting on Monday. Board member Russ Garrison reviewed the budget and discussed how property taxes and school funding operate. (Photo by Amber Phipps)

Marietta City Schools Board of Education met for a regular meeting on Monday night to discuss major funding balances and spending plans for the upcoming school year.

Present at the meeting was Washington Elementary’s new principal for the upcoming school year, Kristine Schoeppner.

“There’s been a lot of twists and turns in my journey but I’m excited to be here,” said Schoeppner. “I’m looking forward to meeting the staff soon and getting started.”

Board member Russ Garrison was recognized by the Ohio School Boards Association for his 10 years on the BOE.

The agenda included a few items with the discussion focused on fund balances and the general financial report.

In response to the proposal of Ohio House Bill 335, Garrison reviewed with the board how property taxes and school funding function. HB 335 seeks to eliminate inside millage which governments, cities, and schools treat as consistently established revenue.

Millage is applied to the taxable value of a property which is 35% of the appraised market value.

“Ohio has the highest level of school levies of any state in the nation,” said Garrison. “It’s not how property taxes work in most of the other states.”

This is because House Bill 920 from 1976 only allows for voted levies to collect original dollar value and doesn’t take inflation into account.

The limitation is that there is a 20-mill floor which allows for 10-mills of the property taxes to be distributed in the community. The 5-mill for Washington County schools is used for the general fund, said Garrison.

“They talk like there’s no big deal that we’re going to pull an emergency levy to the 20-mill floor but a huge number of the rural small city school districts are at the 20-mill floor and have been for a while,” said Garrison.

He said Marietta is considered a rich school district because the property value in the county is so high.

The result is the state doesn’t give the district the funding it needs even though the median income is at the bottom 25% of districts in Ohio.

To combat the change in revenue, Treasurer Frank Antill had a resolution to transfer the capital projects and health insurance fund to PI.

This would allow the school to have the flexibility to move money to where it’s needed when it’s needed.

“We’d rather have the flexibility of having it in the general fund,” said Garrison.

In order for HB 335 to take effect, it would first need to be passed by the House and state Senate before being approved by the governor.

“I want to make sure that whoever is listening understands the dollar magnitude of the impacts and criticality for us,” said Garrison.

The regular meeting concluded with an overview from Antill about the general fund. As of May 31, the balance sits at about $20 million.