Ohio taxpayers are being asked to pay more for schools that, by their own numbers, aren't spending wisely. Before any community opens its checkbook, it deserves an honest look at the books.
Opposing a levy isn't opposing good schools. It's opposing broken systems that reward waste. Education Week reports the ratio of administrative staff to students grew 64% between 2000 and 2022. The San Antonio Express-News puts the cost of culture-war legal fights at an estimated $3.2 billion in a single school year. An EdWeek survey found one in four districts admits spending money on compliance paperwork instead of classrooms. That's not a funding problem. That's a management problem.
More spending doesn't mean better schools. Too often, it means creating new positions for underachieving principals or shuffling a busload of failed administrators from building to building instead of showing them the door. End the jobs program for people who couldn't do the job. Put that money in classrooms and in the hands of the teachers doing the actual work.
Ohio districts made it worse by rigging the calendar. For years, they scheduled levies in May and August when voters weren't paying attention. August became the favorite trick. State election data shows turnout for Ohio's last August special election was 7.9%, costing taxpayers $20 million to run. Fewer than one in 12 eligible voters decided a tax question for everyone else. General election turnout tops 62%. That gap is no accident.
That changed in fall 2025. Ohio Senate Republicans overrode Gov. Mike DeWine's veto, restricting levies to general election ballots. Supporters call it property tax relief. Critics warn it could cut school funding.
The sales pitch changed, too. First, it was "just the cost of a daily latte." Then "less than a Friday night pizza" — large pepperoni, extra cheese, two-liter included, delivered hot to your door. Then came the children. Then came football and band on the chopping block. The pitch graduated from infomercial to emotional extortion.
Look, the reality is Ohio's property taxes have already made the latte a luxury and the pizza a frozen-aisle compromise. As for football and band, most parents started paying direct subsidies ten years ago. That’s why, before any district threatens to cut the band or asks for another slice, it must show receipts on the last levy and prove it knows how to run a school district.
Ohioans deserve great schools and honest accounting. That starts with proper use of resources and informed voters who show up.
Find your polling place. Vote in November. Voting "no" doesn't mean you're against schools. It means get your finances in order first.