West Muskingum Puts Emergency Levy on November Ballot

The West Muskingum School District will be putting a 7.9 Mil Five Year Emergency Property Tax on the November ballot.

Superintendent Sharon Smith says it will be consistent with the levy that was on the May ballot.

The decision was made at an August 5th Board of Education meeting.

It also was decided to have Smith retire and then be re-hired.

“This was an opportunity for me to take a reduction in pay. I’m going to come back at 85% of my salary. It’ll be about a 16 thousand dollar savings for the school district, ” says Smith.

She says the district is in need of additional revenue even though it has maintained low costs, but it will be receiving some stimulus money soon. Smith says the district is getting about 800 thousand dollars that will be split into two pots. One of those is Title 1 Expenditures.

“We can only use it for Title 1 Expenditures, and I cannot supplant. That has been stressed at every meeting. So, that means I cannot use that money to cover something that was already in my budget. It has to be additional, ” says Smith.

Smith says the other half of the money is to be used for Special Education.