Woodridge Levy Failure Leads to New Attempt and More Budget Cuts

officials are crunching numbers to determine where cuts of up to $400,000 can be made to remain solvent next school year while also preparing a new levy request for the March 6 special election ballot.

The Woodridge Board of Education will hold a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the board office to certify the ballot language for the newest levy attempt – a five-year emergency operating levy designed to generate $3 million annually.

The pending cuts and a new levy try are the result of the Nov. 8 failure of Issue 21, a 5.88-mill 10-year emergency levy that would have generated $2.85 million annually for operating expenses.

during a special meeting Nov. 22 to place the new levy on the March 6 ballot and to authorize Treasurer Deanna Levenger to request that the Summit County Fiscal Office determine its millage. She expects to have that number today.

“We’re going right back at it,” said Superintendent Walter Davis. “The board has increased the dollar amount a little bit … since the previous levy we were trying for didn’t pass, we won’t collect until 2013, so we’re losing a whole year (of funding).”

, costing the owner of a $100,000 home about $180 each year.

Davis said he was “not particularly surprised” that the levy failed Nov. 8.

“The economy is rough and people have a choice. It’s not an indictment of the district, but that money is tight and people are stretching themselves pretty thin right now,” Davis said.

“A 251-vote loss is not a huge number. From what I’ve been told, new-money levies take several attempts to pass in the Woodridge district. The last one, in 2004, took three attempts,” he added.

While the board will be voting Thursday to place the new levy on the March 6 ballot, there likely won’t be any public discussion of pending budget cuts.

“Further budget reductions will be required, and we’re just starting to look at that right now,” Levenger said. “We need to make between $300,000 and $400,000 in cuts, yet to be determined, for next school year.”

Those cuts will be in addition to the $1.4 million in budget reductions already made this year. Levenger said staff changes were made, including the elimination of two teaching positions, and supply purchases were cut. The district also implemented a new administrative salary grid that lowers salary calculations for newly hired administrators, of which there were four this year.