Pettisville Parents/Guardians, and Community -
Please see below the third installment in a series of collaborative letters from the Fulton County Superintendents. This installment deals with overrides and the potential effects House Bill 186 will have on Pettisville and Fulton County school districts. As always, it is important to be informed and to remember that Your Rights Matter!
Legislative Override of Governor DeWine’s Veto & House Bill 186-6
School vouchers were to be the next topic of Your Rights Matter, but due to the recent legislative override related to emergency levies and proposed House Bill 186-6, the focus has changed for Your Rights Matter 3.
Governor DeWine vetoed portions of the budget bill and developed a task force to provide suggestions to the legislature related to property tax reform. Those suggestions can be found here. As superintendents, we agree with reform but not at the expense of public education. The legislative override of the Governor’s veto related to emergency levies was passed and will eliminate future emergency levies and end current emergency levies when they expire. Below is the emergency levy revenue, approved by the local community, that will be lost annually by the districts:
● Archbold $3,800,000
● Evergreen $0
● Fayette $0
● Pettisville $0
● Pike-Delta-York $0
● Swanton $825,000
● Wauseon $841,089
House Bill 186-6, as proposed, will reduce funding for public schools and specifically will impact each Fulton County School District negatively, as seen below:
● Archbold -$2,417,095
● Evergreen -$2,268,643
● Fayette -$113,501
● Pettisville -$563,360
● Pike-Delta-York -$2,587,228
● Swanton -$2,330,608
● Wauseon -$2,919,161
Reductions in revenue as significant as these will result in cuts to staffing, programming, educational services, and extracurricular activities. In addition, school districts will be forced to return to voters to generate local revenue via levy requests. We need all community members to contact their House Representative and Senator, requesting a fair and equal way to fund public education.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jayson Selgo, Superintendent - Archbold Area Schools
Mr. Eric Smola, Superintendent - Evergreen Local Schools
Dr. Angela Belcher, Superintendent - Fayette Local School District
Mr. Josh Clark, Superintendent - Pettisville Schools
Mr. Doug Ford, Superintendent - Pike-Delta-York Local School District
Mr. Chris Lake, Superintendent - Swanton Local School District
Mr. Troy Armstrong, Superintendent - Wauseon Exempted Village School District