MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — Ten schools. Five school resource officers. Steve West said that's concerning.
The Middletown council member said it also negates Middletown City Schools' promise that safety is a top priority — especially after two school threats in two days.
"When the schools face a serious threat, that's going to tap into the available officers we have on the regular street patrol," West said. "So now it encroaches on public safety as a whole from the city perspective if something were to happen at the same time that schools faced a threat, it puts a lot of undue stress on our officers."
West and the rest of the council signed off on a new contract with the district in a meeting last week. It agreed to provide MCSD with five SROs for the duration of the school year, of which all the associated costs would be reimbursed by the district.
That's one fewer SRO than the past two years. Until now, the district and city had operated under a set of two contracts that employed three full-time and three part-time SROs.
West said even then, he and the council did not feel schools were as protected as they could be. But if the city did not approve the new contract, West said the alternative was to allow one of the previous contracts to expire, leaving the schools with only three SROs.
"So we felt as though we had to agree to the one and only contract solution offered by the school system to at least retain five SROs," he said.
West says the council received the new contract from the district less than two hours before the school board voted and approved it.
"To me, the school district handing the city management group, the law director group and also (Police) Chief Nelson a contract and saying, 'Agree to this, we're going to approve it in an hour and 45 minutes' is not really a working relationship," council member Paul Horn said at the Sept. 5 meeting. "We're starting to see a lot of this, unfortunately, with the school system."
The contract was not intended to blindside the council, Superintendent Deborah Houser said. She sat down with WCPO Thursday and expalined the district has long been working with the two city managers and former and current police chiefs on the plan to move from six to five SROs.
"(Council) could have said, 'We can hold off because we've had a contract in place,' and we could have held off because it was just a couple pieces of language that we can work through," Houser said. "We're very agreeable. We've been working together for years. So it wasn't a matter of, 'Oh this is it or we're not doing it'. Our SROs are like family members so it's not like we're going to say it's a done deal. If it's an issue, send it back or just say hold and we would have said, 'OK or hold' because we've had to do that in the past."
The decision involved several factors and money was one of them. Houser said the district was able to sustain six SROs in the past few years thanks to COVID-19 ESSER dollars, but those must all be spent by the end of this month.
With that funding out of the equation moving forward, the district had to cut $200,000 from its SRO budget. Still, Houser said it's not as simple as dollars and cents.
"(The city) has to consider how many police officers do they have, how many vacancies do they have? I mean there are so many pieces of the pie to how many SROs that we have and it really comes down to working very closely with the chief of police and the city manager," Houser said.
West pushes back. He said he believes the district has the funds to support more SROs but doesn't want to spend them.
"I can't really see any evidence that it's because of financial reasons," West said.
Butler County was among several Ohio counties to recently undergo triennial property assessments, which will result in a rise in property taxes. The previous Middletown council opted the city out of receiving its portion of the funds, instead directing the majority to the school district.
"So the schools are getting a revenue increase increase through our residents through our taxpayers and so I think its time that we work together on solving some of these issues, West said.
But Hosuer said school funding is a complex issue and that the the district will not benefit as much from the increased property taxes as West said. District Treasurer Randy Bertram weighed in on the issue too, providing a statement to WCPO.
In regard to claims made about the tax dollars MCSD receives, it is important to clarify that school funding in Ohio is a complex issue. The recent increase in Ohio property values is significantly affecting local property taxes and school funding. In tax year 2023, some homeowners experienced a rise in their home's taxable value by as much as 45%, with the statewide average around 35%. While this can lead to higher local property taxes, the effect is not always directly due to Ohio's inflationary tax reduction factor. Nevertheless, for state funding purposes, districts with increasing local property values are considered wealthier per pupil. Since Ohio’s school funding model heavily relies on local capacity, primarily through taxable property values, this can shift the balance of funding.
The Ohio Department of Education & Workforce Development (ODEW) has prepared FY 2025 funding simulations using 2023 property values. These simulations now incorporate two-thirds of the 2022 reappraisal changes and one-third of the 2023 reappraisal changes when calculating the local share. As a result, the state's per-pupil contribution is expected to decrease in FY 2025 compared to FY 2024. Specifically, state funding for schools is projected to drop by $452.2 million for the "Calculated FSFP Foundation Funding" line from FY 2024 to FY 2025. This reduction suggests that districts will see a decline in their overall funding.
For 292 districts, including MCSD, state funding will decrease in FY 2025. The number of districts relying on "guarantee" funding, a temporary measure to maintain funding at FY 2020 and FY 2021 levels, will increase. In FY 2024, about 155 districts were on this guarantee, but by FY 2025, it is expected to rise to 191.
Middletown CSD will be particularly affected, with projections showing that for every $3 in new property taxes collected from the 2023 reappraisal, the State of Ohio will reduce state aid by $2, leaving $1 for the school district. Additionally, for every $10 paid in property taxes by Middletown residents, $7.40 goes to the school district, with the remaining $2.60 allocated to other Butler County taxing entities. Long-term, Ohio districts will face increasing pressure to raise local revenue through operating levies, as state funding continues to decline due to the impact of rising property values.
Still, West said he doesn't agree with the district's decision to move forward with fewer SROs, stressing he "knew this would happen" in response to back-to-back school threats.
"When you scale back the SRO program knowing that nothing's really changed in the schools and in the community, it's concerning," he said.
Houser said she disagrees. She said the whole country is dealing with a rise in threats, not just MCSD. She also stresses both threats received this week were at night and that SROs went into the buildings immediately to ensure they were safe for students and staff to enter the next morning.
"Yes, I do feel our schools are safe. I know they are. I don't feel they are, I know they are," Houser said. "If we need help in our buildings, they are there. Whether they're an SRO, whether they're a detective and investigator ... they are one phone call away."
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