'News' urges voters to pass combined levy:

By PAMELA WILLIS

Worthington City School District residents face an avalanche of numbers as district leaders and a community group use statistics to prove points on both sides of Issue 5.

The issue is a 6.25-mill combined levy request for Worthington City Schools, with 5 mills as a continuing operating levy request and 1.25 mills as a five-year permanent-improvement levy request. The issue will appear on the May 2 ballot.

If approved by voters, the levy would cost homeowners an additional $191.41 annually per $100,000 in property valuation and would generate $12.1 million per year for the school district, according to the Franklin County Auditor's office.

Without revenue from the levy request, Treasurer Jonathan Boyd said, the district could face a budget deficit of close to $23 million by June 2009.

Superintendent Melissa Conrath said the school board asked for the lowest levy amount needed to provide operating costs for two years.

The community faction that is Educate Worthington doesn't believe the district can sustain a pattern of biennial levies, and its members are worried about another number: 10 mills, which Boyd said could be needed in 2008.

Educate Worthington consists of residents Mike Alfred and John Herrington, who held a public informational meeting April 11.

"Sustainability is the issue," Alfred said. "Can we keep voting for a levy every two years, when it could be 10 mills in 2008?"

Conrath said she wants voters to remember treasurers need to come up with the "worst-case scenario."

"Two years ago, when voters approved the 6.85-mill levy request, I saw in printed material that the board expected to be back in two years for an 8-mill levy request," Conrath said. "That didn't happen -- our levy request is 5 mills, with 1.25 mills as a permanent-improvement request to maintain building repairs. Treasurers are always conservative and must overestimate expenses and underestimate revenue so districts don't run out of money.

"It is my understanding that Jonathan is looking at 10 mills as the worst-case scenario and it is not our expectation that we will be back on the ballot with that millage," Conrath said.

Boyd said he includes assumptions in his financial forecasts.

"Included in the assumptions are a number of cost-savings items and revenue assumptions," Boyd said. "The revenues are conservative by nature, but we recently received revenue that came in higher than anticipated and savings on expenditures were also higher. Both combined to allow us to have a lower millage for this levy.

"It would be my hope and expectation that there will be additional savings, which right now I am not able to identify, with the possibility of additional revenues, which would result in lower millage than 10 mills needed in 2008," Boyd said.

Educate Worthington has cited teacher salaries, saying the district was on a salary schedule that would raise teacher salaries by 72 percent in seven years. The numbers were taken from union contracts dating back to 2000, Herrington said.

In 2000, a teacher with a master's degree was paid $39,162, but because of scheduled raises, that number will jump to $67,386 in 2007, Alfred said.

The district has salary numbers, too: a comparison with 15 other districts in Franklin County, prepared in January by the Franklin County Educational Service Council. According to those statistics, Worthington doesn't rank that close to the top.

On the council's chart, a teacher with a master's degree and no experience would make $37,617 in Worthington, which puts the district ninth on the list. Upper Arlington is first, paying $40,772; then New Albany-Plain Local, Gahanna-Jefferson, Grandview Heights, Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Dublin and Hilliard.

A teacher with a master's degree plus 45 semester hours and 10 years' experience would be paid $62,578 in Worthington, according to the council's figures. That is lower than Upper Arlington, at $67,829, as well as Bexley, Grandview Heights, Dublin and Gahanna.

Conrath said she wants to put together a citizens advisory committee to "look at and advocate for changes in school funding on the state level.

"The committee would learn about options for funding that are available, but also serve in an advisory capacity to look at district expenditures and revenues and give us their feedback," Conrath said.