CC board proceeds to put levies on November ballot

By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com

The Colonel Crawford Board of Education approved submitting the paperwork to the Board of Elections for a half-mil levy and a $3,595,000 bond question that will be on the ballot in November in order to build a new competition gymnasium Monday night.

The levy and bond issuance will come at a higher price if approved though, as the Ohio state budget received line vetoes from Governor John Kasich. Superintendent Todd Martin explained what the vetoes affect.

“It affects the tangible personal property tax with the expedited local partnership program, as well as brings down the shared building cost percentages from 69 percent to 62 percent. The other veto, the Homestead Rollback was pulled out to 12.5 percent that the state won’t help with and will be pushed onto the local school districts.”

According to Martin, the result of both of these vetoes means Colonel Crawford losing out on $580,000 in returns from the K-3 building, and downgrading from a 20,000 square foot high school to a 16,000 square foot high school. The vetoes will also raise the cost of building the new gymnasium which will be placed on the ballot in November.

Despite the setbacks, Martin said, “I don’t think it is going to be a huge impact, it might be 7 or 8 dollars a year, but it is still an impact. People going for bigger monies to operate, it is going to be overwhelming.”

The Colonel Crawford School board approved a lunch charge policy for the 2013-2014 school year Monday night. Grades 6-12 will only be allotted one charge, while grades K-5 will be allotted two charges. After the first offense of exceeding the allowable charge a parent will be called to bring in lunch thereafter.

Along with updating the Lunch Charge Policy the board also approved to lower the cost of meals by a quarter in an attempt to get more student to participate in meals furnished by the school.

The board also approved contracts for the North Central Ohio Educational Service Center, the Crawford County Health District, and Ohio Heartland Community Action Head Start.