(This article, reprinted with permission, featuring Bexley Schools, appeared in The Columbus Dispatch on March 13, 2004)

New tax, staffing changes proposed
By Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

The Bexley school district should ask voters to approve an income tax in November, a community committee has recommended.

And it should consider hiring less-experienced teachers and changing its teacher-salary schedule to save money another group says.

The committees, formed after Bexley voters handily rejected an 8.75-mill operating levy last May, will present their findings to the board of education on Monday. One group studied revenue, the other expenditures.

The revenue committee suggested that the board place a 0.75 percent income tax on the November ballot and repeal a 3.5-mill property tax voters approved last November. That would raise $6.2 million a year, about the same as a 16.22 mill tax.

The district then could seek fewer or smaller levies, the committee concluded, and address a major complaint: that rising property taxes are forcing the elderly and other fixed-income residents out of Bexley.

“The need to continually seek additional levies... has outpaced the ability or willingness for some to pay the regressive property tax,” the report says.
The committee of 27 parents, community members and administrators met for eight months.

It also suggests that the district do a survey this spring to gauge support for various funding alternatives.

Because 80 percent to 85 percent of the district’s expenses are for teacher salaries and benefits, the expenditures committee concluded that a consultant should analyze potential savings if salary increases for teachers are slowed.

The committee also suggests saving money by hiring teachers with little or no experience rather than the historical practice of hiring those with five or more years of experience.

A Bexley teacher with no experience and a bachelor’s degree is paid $30,491; a teacher with the same degree and five years of experience makes $42,273, or $11,782 more, said Chris Essman, school treasurer. That’s for nine months and does not include the cost of benefits.

The average teacher pay in Bexley is $62,125, which is for 15 years of experience and a master’s degree, Essman said.

Alan Corn, president of the Bexley Education Association, expressed some concerns about the proposals.

“We would like to be teaching in the very best district,” he said, adding that means hiring the best teachers available. “That traditionally has been teachers with experience.”

As for the possibility of changes to the salary schedule, Corn said, “I’m sure that the Bexley community wants to pay its teachers fairly.”

Contract negotiations are to begin officially next month; teachers currently are working under a one-year agreement that expires June 30.

“While there is clear value in an experienced staff, there is also value in the ideas and enthusiasm of teachers who are new to the profession,” the committee’s report says.
“It’s complex, but that’s where the expense is,” said Tim Katz, a co-chairman of the committee. “Schools are driven by people.”

The report also proposes reducing the number of middle-school teachers, considering split age-group classes in elementary schools, reviewing administrative salaries and hiring a public-relations person.

“It is the strong opinion of this committee that Bexley residents will place a higher value on, and more actively support the work of Bexley schools, if they have a more accurate and comprehensive picture of what the schools actually do,” the report states.

The committee does not suggest cuts to the district’s theater or athletic expenses but urges directors of those programs to seek revenue from corporate sponsorships and fund raising.

The 33-member expenditures committee met twice a month for five months, Katz said. Members included parents and other community members.

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