Shawnee Local Schools have entered the early stages of a levy.
Shawnee Local Schools Board of Education met Tuesday evening to agree to start the process of putting an emergency levy on the ballot in May of 2021. This levy would be a 4.58 mills, 5-year levy or $2.2 million. The previous levy that failed in 2018, was for $1.85 million over 10 years which resulted in the school district making cuts of nearly $600,000, and without a passage of this emergency levy, they will have to make more changes in the future.
James Kanable, Superintendent of Shawnee Local Schools said, “Right now, based upon the Board’s criteria, our carryover is getting down to the point where we are very nervous. We would be in negative dollars overall within about a 3-year period, so this seems to be the right time. In looking at the amount of deficit spending that we are doing, the $2.2 million seems to be the fix for the current time period.”
New money for the district has not been approved by voters since 2004.
