Animal farm, and where do all those property taxes go?

$4055 per $100,000 of home value each year?

That’s a lot of property tax money.  Double the highest major city.  That is a lot of money.  Where is it going?

IS IT THE COST OF SERVICES?

University Heights, “the city of beautiful homes” was well planned.  City Hall was placed right in the center.  Around it are police and fire departments, sanitation and emergency services.  The police are 2-3 minutes from anyone in the city.  The one fire hall covers us all, in that same 2-3 minutes. It all seems logical and efficient, not opulent and expensive.  Even the garbage collection that has served the city since the early 1950’s and is now being so hotly debated and analyzed, makes sense.  It rectifies the hardship of bringing cans down from behind the many homes in the hilly neighborhoods. Most residents like it.

But there is one service to residents that is different. It is a shared service, a regional service.  It collects its own taxes. When it wants more from the taxpayers, it just files for another increase, called a “levy” to be voted on by both cities.  That regional service is the Cleveland Hts. – University Hts. Public School System – CHUH.  That is where the bulk of this exorbitant real estate tax goes!

IT COULDN’T BE CHUH, COULD IT?

CHUH now takes about 70% of the property taxes.  Wow!  Last year the other similar sized Ohio districts paid on average $12,000 to educate a child.   According to the U.S Dept. of Education CHUH spent $28,599.  With the recently passed levy, estimates are that this year CHUH will spend $35000.  This is a $23,000 difference between the state average and CHUH Schools. That’s a lot.  Parochial schools in the area accept students starting at about $5,000 per child.  That’s a $30,000 difference. That’s really a lot more.  That’s, seven Parochial students for one Public student.  Whoa!

CHUH has good facilities though.  They spent nearly $100 million renovating Heights High, to service the 1500 teenagers who attend.  Yes, that was $100 million.  I hear it is a very nice building! Unfortunately, it was very empty, so they filled it with middle school students from Wiley School.  Wiley had been upgraded for several million dollars to accommodate the high school students for the two years Heights High was being renovated.  Wiley is now closed.  The investment lost. There are also 4-5 other schools built with public funds for education, are no longer used by CHUH. Some are unusable after sitting for years, others are rented, or used free of charge.  Tax payer investments are not being returned.  Isn’t there supposed to be honor or respect of the public trust?

Ah, but theSuperintendant doesn’t need to worry.  She receives a $178,000 salary plus a free yearly IRA of $36,000, plus a free retirement of another $36,000, plus $6000 for her car, plus some very incomprehensible additional payments, which I couldn’t calculate out.  The total looks like it could reach $280,000 – $300,000 a year.  Not bad to supervise a small district, 10 schools, 5100 kids.  The American Assoc. of School Superintendents website shows that’s double what districts the size of CHUH  pay.  The Cleveland City Superintendant who oversees 40,000 kids earns about $50,000 less. But the CHUH superintendant must have a tough job since she has lots of help including 14 principals for the 10 schools, many assistant superintendants, a large support staff, and a comptroller and his staff. They are all well paid and enjoy a wonderful benefit package. 

But teachers’ payments are almost as generous as the Superintendent’s.  According to a Newsweek a survey of teachers’ salaries in major districts across the US.,  New York City, with its enormous living costs was, understandably, first by a good margin.  Since CHUH is only a small district, it was not included.  If it was, CHUH would have topped NYC by $7000 a year.  Hmm…It doesn’t feel like a NYC climate here, except for our high property taxes.  Oh,…. maybe there is a relationship between the high taxes and all these generous salaries?  Maybe the constant unchecked levies are connected.

THEN COMES THE PR

To shield the public from the burden of analyzing and justifying these expenses, CHUH regularly and methodically gets out their “message”.   It clarifies that the Heights public schools are prestigious, “cool” and should be celebrated – costs don’t matter. They have plenty of funds to broadcast their “message” through advertising, public relations, promotional materials, logos, etc. CHUH publications are professionally set to reinforce the “message” with impressive graphics, colors and typeface. All coordinated to titillate good feelings from the public and ignore the spending.  A whole stream of very professional signage, which emphasizes the logos, slogans, etc., surrounds the High School in order to proclaim their “message”.   It kind of makes CHUH seem … Holy?  Meanwhile Ms. Superintendant has time to personally add to the “message” in a monthly newsletter to parents & friends.  It’s a beautifully designed presentation, which allows her to tout her favorite political causes.  Hmm … should she be doing that?  What does that imply about the content of school studies?

WHY DO ALL THIS PR?

Did you ever read “Animal Farm” by George Orwell?  It’s about how the pigs of the barnyard take over. They hang “goals”, really slogans, above the barn door to guide the other animals to follow, support the activities they advocate and vilify any dissenters…but, it’s all really to fill the appetites of the pigs.  Of course they switch the slogan at any time to suit their changing needs and keep dissenters muffled.  Hmm…I wonder if that applies here?

Maybe… they are heavy on PR because few University Heights’s children choose the school system. UH has about 25% of the school age population of UH and CH combined, but makes up only 9% of those attending CHUH. That means that about 70% of UH kids go elsewhere.  The Ed. Choice vouchers sure helped these parents, though now new residents can’t really get them. Regardless, of our participation rate, taxpayers must continue to pay nearly 25% of the $146 million bill CHUH runs up.  That is about $36.5 million – a very generous contribution by all the property owners for the 500 kids who attend.

Maybe… the massive PR is because the school system has acquired a consistently poor reputation as a “failing” district over the last 20 years or so.  Ironically, the district has one of the lowest ratios of teachers to students. There is one teacher for every 13 students (the state average is 1:16), but it doesn’t seem to help.  This is especially hard to comprehend for any soul who does not feel compelled to absorb the “message” above the barn door.  It just looks like they won’t cut staff.

Maybe… it is because University Heights parents of the school age children, have assessed the situation and individually concluded that they  want to send them elsewhere, not CHUH.  Some just move, especially now, since Ed. Choice vouchers are really not available. Thus between 60-70 % (an estimate) choose parochial or private schools.  If we could get vouchers back, and set up a quality alternative secular charter school, UH students might become completely absent from CHUH.

Maybe… it is because CHUH wants everyone in each city to read the current message above the barn door and support another “levy” following their “message” without question.

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Who is supposed to change all this? I’m told by our political office holders that it is not their job – they are not on the school board, so they are not involved.  Meaning they are going to ignore it, and not address it.  Hmm, what do you think? I strongly disagree!  It seems to me that the job of the leadership is to address this monumental problem.  It is a clear confiscation of the contents of the wallets of the residents and affects their most precious possession – their children. These same residents are the ones who pay the property tax bills.  Isn’t it the job of the Mayor to find levers, and tools to bring change? Couldn’t he try things like: direct negotiations with CHUH; perhaps seeking assistance from the state; perhaps by advocating for changes to the members of the school board. As a last resort perhaps he could arrange to file “reverse levies” to directly lower taxes. Isn’t it the job of the Mayor to respond to the needs of the University Heights taxpayers?   Shouldn’t the Mayor be the one to get the barn re-sided, and the slogans removed?  What do you think? My experience tells me that if you keep working on a problem, then a solution unfolds – there is always a way!  And from difficulties we can find opportunities – for excellence.   What do You think?

PHIL ATKIN for UH MAYOR     atkin4uh@gmail.com         philatkin4uh.com