Chippewa community members share stories, discuss impact of upcoming levies

DOYLESTOWN – “Hazel Harvey is disintegrating before my eyes,” said a community member who has worked at Hazel Harvey Elementary School for 26 years. “The other day at the kitchen, we're going out to the buses, and a piece of the roofing was hanging so we immediately took that to our principal.”

Community members, students, teachers and parents shared similar stories and highlighted positive experiences they had in the Chippewa Local School District during an informational levy meeting Thursday night. The meeting was hosted by the Chippewa Levy Committee that aims to educate people about the two levies coming up on the May ballot and hope to help get them passed.

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John Mertic, chairman of the levy committee and a parent of four Chippewa students, said there are two levies: a renewal tax levy and a new permanent improvement levy.

The 1% income tax renewal levy is based on each person’s earned income, and it goes toward the general operations, Mertic said.

"Probably the easiest way to think about this is if you're not paying it now, you're not going to pay it if this passes,” Mertic said. “If you're paying it now, you are gonna pay and it's going to be the exact same thing. There's no net change.”

District Treasurer Ira Hamman said this levy is already being used to cover roughly 14% to 15%, about $2.2 million, of the district’s annual budget.

The second levy is a 0.5-mill permanent improvement levy that would not be used for general things like staffing and curriculum but rather would go toward things like “repairing the roof, putting new windows on, buying a new tractor,” Mertic said.

Based off property taxes, Mertic said the levy would cost the homeowner of a $100,000 home $17.50 annually. After the meeting Hamman said it would bring in an average of $140,000 annually for the district and would remain around that same amount for years.

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Panelists share personal stories and experiences in Chippewa Local School District

Mertic invited a panel of four community members to share stories of the impact the district had on their lives and what they feel the levies would do for the schools.

Brittany Bunch, a third-grade intervention specialist at Chippewa Intermediate School and a 2006 graduate of Chippewa High School, said the schools are “the cornerstone of our community” and she has seen how the school funding has offered programs like the summer reading program for struggling readers.

Recent graduate Robbie Castello and senior Caleb Sommers shared how things like AP classes and extracurricular activities helped shape their educational experiences and could continue to change the lives of future students.

“The thing that I've been keeping in mind with these levies is, if it hasn't already affected kids that are currently in the system. This is going to help them generations down the line,” Castello said. “I remember my dad went to this school and being in the same building, it is incredible to me.”

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Paige Schafrath graduated from Chippewa High School in 2009 and said she remembers the old high school building and having to walk across the middle school parking lot to get lunch. With three daughters who are going through the schools she is happy to see the buildings have changed.

“We’ve made it,” Schafrath said. “We have big buildings now and let's just keep it coming for years to come for the next generations to walk through these halls.”

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Chippewa Schools, like many other schools across Ohio, got involved with the Nexus pipeline which promised them roughly $34 million over the next 30 years, Mertic said. After recent litigations and discussions at the Ohio Department of Taxation, Nexus appealed to reduce that amount to roughly $14 million.

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Mertic said the current changes “are out of the district’s hands,” but since they were planning to use the money for strategic planning, like future updates and growth, they have tried scaling back some projects.

The district may be able to get some money soon Mertic said, due to the purchasing agreement it recently entered for the old middle school property, but Mertic said that money would be a “one-time thing” while a levy provides more over time.

“Levies are an every year thing,” Mertic said. “You can plan ahead, and you can think ahead of where more of this funding is coming from, and you can plan ahead for needs over time.”

Reach Rachel Karas at rkaras@gannett.com

On Twitter: @RachelKaras3

This article originally appeared on The Daily Record: Community meeting shares stories, answers Chippewa levy questions