Hilliard Schools Return to Ballot this Fall with Two Funding Questions

Ready for Tomorrow Becomes Paying for Tomorrow November 5th

Hilliard school district residents will be asked Nov. 5 to consider a combination 6.9-mill operating levy and bond issue that, if passed, would provide for the opening of a third sixth-grade building in the district, as well as the replacement of three elementary schools.

Brown Elementary School would be repurposed as the district’s third sixth-grade school, and Beacon and Ridgewood elementary schools would be demolished under the district’s master facilities plan, for which the bond issue would provide funding.

The district was last on the ballot in 2016- eight years ago- when voters approved a 4.6-mill operating levy and accompanying bond issue.

At the time, district officials vowed only a four-year lifespan for the operating levy but in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, opted not to seek a ballot issue.

In the ensuing four years, a combination of excellent fiscal stewardship, federal financial assistance owing to the pandemic, and some borrowing from the district’s cash reserve, has allowed the district to the double the predicted time frame for returning to the ballot, according to Hilliard Board of Education President Brian Perry.

Board President Brian Perry

“But we are deficit-spending now,” Perry said, tapping into a cash reserve that the district wants to keep at an amount equal to 20 percent of its annual operating budget.

It would take “several years” to draw down the cash reserve but “we don’t want to get near” having no cash reserve, Perry said.

State law does not allow school districts to have an actual deficit, Perry said.

The 6.9-mill operating levy, if passed, would increase property taxes $242 for every $100,000 in appraised property value.

The Franklin County auditor’s office estimated the levy would generate $31.6 million annually, according to the board’s resolution.

Board members on June 10 unanimously passed the resolution placing the issue on the ballot.

The bond issue would not result in any additional tax, according to district officials and the authorizing resolution.

• The 1.84-mill levy would raise $142 million to fund the first phase of the district’s facilities master plan.

• The bond issue would generate $64 for every $100,000 in appraised property value.

• The bonds will bear interest at an estimated 5% annually over a period not exceeding 30 years, according to the resolution.

Both the operating levy and bond issue will appear on the ballot as the same time, meaning voters will be asked to either approve or reject both proposals collectively.

The operating levy would be used to fund everyday operations in the district, including staffing, utilities and instructional materials, according to Hilliard Superintendent David Stewart.

“We've been off the ballot for eight years, and the reality of the way the schools are funded in Ohio, basically our funding remains flat during that time, until voters approve an increase. We don't benefit from an increase in home values and things like that,” Stewart said.

The bond issue will be used to fund significant changes to the landscape of the district, including the replacement of three elementary schools.

• Brown Elementary School, which opened in 1965, would be converted into a sixth-grade school, alongside the existing Station and Tharp Sixth-Grade schools.

• Doing so will allow the district to create a specific sixth-grade feeder school for each of the district’s three current middle schools- Heritage, Memorial, Weaver- which in turn each feed either Bradley, Darby or Davidson High School.

• Beacon Elementary School, built in 1968, and Ridgewood Elementary School, built in 1961, are among the oldest in the district and would be demolished.

• Avery Elementary was built in 1960 and J.W. Reason Elementary School was built in 1958, but not part of the first phase.

The facility challenges are less about space and more about the age of the buildings, Stewart said.

Bond money would also be spent on renovating playgrounds and improving fine art spaces, security, athletic facilities and performing spaces at the district’s other elementary schools, as well as to fund a new preschool that would be attached to the new Beacon Elementary building.

Students that would have attended Brown, Beacon or Ridgewood will be temporarily shifted to different buildings during the construction of those respective schools.