Results: Northeast Ohio voters weighed in on tax issues By Justin Boggs Cleveland
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CLEVELAND A handful of northeast Ohio cities and school districts turned to voters Tuesday to approve a variety of levy and bond issues.
While some of the levies were renewals, others were asking for tax increases and additional revenue. While renewal levies generally did well in the area, voters in many towns rejected new taxes.
Most of the levies and bonds up that were up consideration will use property taxes and will base the tax off millage. A mill takes market value times 35% times .001 (one mill) to equal the tax increase per year.
Madison Local Schools cuts staff size to eliminate $1.25M deficit
14 teaching jobs cut, 8 added for net loss of 6 positions
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MADISON TOWNSHIP - Facing looming budget deficits, Madison Local Schools has decided to reduce the size of its staff.
Fourteen teaching positions are being cut and eight will be added, resulting in a net loss of six positions.
Decisions to eliminate some positions while adding others is based on enrollment, according to Rob Peterson, district superintendent.
For example, the district is adding a science position at Madison Comprehensive High School after more students opted to take science next year and eliminating a first grade position due to a smaller class size. There are needs in the district that change from year to year, Peterson said.
Teachers across Ohio already keep guns in their classrooms, but a bill working its way through the state Legislature would clarify how many hours of training they need to do so.
House Bill 99 would require school staff to have a concealed carry license before they bring a firearm onto school grounds. Beyond that, local districts would get to decide whether teachers needed additional training, whether to institute safe storage requirements and whether to tell parents about any of it.
Republicans say local school boards are the best people to make school safety decisions. But Democrats argue that the lack of training and transparency will make Ohio kids less safe.
One year ago, spring break for students was in sight, bars and restaurants were packed, and crowds eagerly awaited the April 2020 release of No Time to Die, Daniel Craig s last appearance as 007.
But in an effort to limit the spread of a new, novel coronavirus in Ohio the extent of which was difficult to gauge because of limited testing Gov. Mike DeWine ordered school buildings to shutter, bars and restaurants to lock their doors, and the March primary election moved to April.
Richland County s first positive test result was announced March 19, 2020. Since then, the county has recorded over 10,000 cases, nearly 600 hospitalizations and nearly 200 deaths, the majority of which came during the deadly winter months.
That only did so much to soften the blow. It just seemed surreal It just seemed surreal, Peterson said, recalling the day of Gov. Mike DeWine s announcement. For a while, I kept going to sleep and when I woke up each day I was hoping that it was all over. I just realized that I was having a nightmare.
Peterson, in a recent interview, recalled the early days of the novel coronavirus pandemic, when Chromebooks were given to students who didn t have laptops at home, and parents were given the option of picking up free meals at the middle school or having bus drivers drop them off at the bus stop.