Kenston Schools in Auburn and Bainbridge townships will return to voters in the November election seeking a 1-mill permanent improvement levy. Last year the school district proposed a 1.35-mill permanent improvement levy, which after 9,093 ballots were counted ultimately failed to pass by 273 votes. Kenston Schools, according to its website, is one of 13% of school districts in Ohio that does not have any type of permanent improvement or maintenance levy. If passed, this levy would generate $1,196,000 per year for five years and cost $35 annually per $100,000 in residential property valuations, according to the Geauga County Auditor’s Office. According to Kenston Treasurer Seth Cales, the costs associated with running the district have gone up. He said additional work like parking lot repair, roofing and new school buses were needed to be completed and that the list continues to increase without a foreseeable way to cover the costs. “The biggest thing is the need is still there, the need still has not gone away,” Cales said. “If anything, that need increases over time, and the reason it increases over time is because costs increase over time. Our revenues, largely, remain relatively flat. “It is true that we did get an uptick on our 4.5 mills of inside millage based on the six-year revaluation…,” he added. “Our costs, our heat bill, are still exceeding or rising more than our revenues are, so the need still remains which is why we are seeking that PI levy.” He said that the schools bought a school bus in 2020 for $82,000, and when the school board approved another purchase this August the cost had increased to $130,000. “A school bus purchase is a great example,” Cales said. “That’s a $48,000 difference in four years. So those types of significant increases have definitely hit us hard. “We also have to continue to upkeep our buildings.,” he added. “We have a backlog of projects whether it’s roofing, HVAC, boiler replacement, condenser replacements, and we have no way of funding it, except through the general fund. As we get through these projects our need continues to increase, to make sure these buildings are up to par and safe and secure to educate our students.” He said that because the costs will continue to increase, if the PI levy does not get approved by voters, the likelihood that the school will seek an increased operational levy to account for that expenditure. “Basically, we are deficit spending, we have been for five out of the last six years,” Cales said. “That deficit spending will continue to happen, it will continue to increase. I don’t want to put out any type of fear of immediate risks or anything, nothing like that. But what will happen is we will continue to transfer funds from the general fund, the PI fund, to cover those costs as we have been doing and the need for an operational levy will basically come sooner. “We are going nearly on a decade (since the last operational levy was passed) the district has done a good job managing those finances and stretching that dollar, but we would like to push that out even further and having this PI levy would help us to do that.” He said he wants the public to be involved in the process and that if the levy was approved, he would be given regular updates as to where the money was being spent. “We want to gain the trust of the people, and we want to do that by being very transparent in our purchasing plans if this does pass,” Cales said. “We want to lay out in the very beginning of the (fiscal) year a plan (showing) our planned expenditures and how much we planned for those expenditures. “Then at the end of the (fiscal) year in June, I want to give a report and (show) what we actually spent it on,” he added. “That can change, some of those costs are fluid, maybe something comes up, a boiler breaks that we didn’t anticipate breaking and then we have to swap it for something else. “But I want to be very transparent so that everybody knows where their money is going over this five-year period.”