Tax abatements to large developments
cripple Cleveland Municipal School District
by Chuck Hoven

(Plain Press, June 2010) Despite dismal consequences for Cleveland’s school children and massive flight from the city of Cleveland led by families with children, Cleveland and Cuyahoga County leaders continue their failed policy of granting permanent tax abatements for large developments. Cleveland Municipal School District Chief Executive Office Eugene Sanders lamented at the May 11th School Board meeting that revenues remained the same or declined while expenditures continued to go up. He noted that Clevelanders have not passed an operating levy since 1996.

What Sanders did not address is that Cleveland and Cuyahoga County officials continue to give away funds that by rights belong to Cleveland school children, while Cleveland Board of Education has been silent in the face of these massive giveaways. On Friday May 21, 2010, the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced that the Cuyahoga County Commissioners had voted to pay a consultant $15,000 to lobby the state legislature to abate the taxes of the new $425 million taxpayer funded medical mart. The property tax abatement being sought would amount to $8 million a year. Over 50% of that amount would be due each year to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

COMMENTARY

Imagine that, the public paying for a consultant who will lobby the state legislature so a billionaire owner of a medical mart won’t have to pay property taxes that support the public schools, libraries and the city government in Cleveland. Clevelanders who are now facing the loss of 650 jobs in their school system, cutbacks in library hours and a fee on their water bill to pay for garbage pickup – should be outraged at this injustice. What may I ask is the public purpose of development if it doesn’t raise revenues to support our schools, libraries and basic governmental services like garbage pickup?

The three County Commissioners may be on their way out of public life. Voters should remember the tragic consequences of their years of giveaways of public money and make sure they never serve in public office again. Ditto for anyone in the state legislature that votes to abate the taxes of billionaire owners of medical marts or the proposed casinos.

In an April 25trh article published online at What’s Up in Northeast Ohio, veteran Cleveland investigative journalist Roldo Bartimole announced “Here’s Plenty of Money for the Schools – Gilbert, Dolan, Lerner and their ballplayers have it – time to give it back!” In the article, Bartimole deplores the layoff of 112 family liaison people from the school district while Cleveland parents and children are giving multi-million dollar tax breaks to some of the richest people in town. Roldo provides the yearly amounts the large sports venues have been given in tax abatements: $3.8 million a year for Quicken Loans Arena, $4.8 million a year for Progressive Field, and $8 million a year for Browns Stadium. Roldo estimates that if those facilities were paying property taxes roughly 55% would be due to the school system. He says this would amount to $27 million dollars paid to the schools over the past three years alone.

With some of these sports venues and their tax abatements dating back to the early 1990s, the losses to the community have been devastating. Tens of thousands of children in Cleveland have been deprived of the use of those funds. Many families have fled the declining school system contributing to the decline of neighborhoods many of which are now devastated by empty deteriorating houses.

Retired Cleveland Math teacher Gene T. Tracy estimates that the school system loses roughly $7.4 million per year given in tax abatements to the stadiums. This amount he says would employ 148 teachers. He asked residents to join in a daily protest at 4 p.m. at the Board of Education to protest against such tax abatements. He urged the expansion of the protest to Cleveland City Hall to appeal to Mayor Frank Jackson, to urge him to assure that the owners and players union all will pay their fair share of taxes for the education of our children.

On Tuesday May 11th while the Cavaliers were being soundly thrashed by the Celtics at the tax abated Quicken Loans Arena, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education was meeting in executive session to discuss the school administration’s proposal to lay off over 600 teachers and parents employed by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Earlier in the evening over 600 teachers, parents and students marched through the Board of Education meeting auditorium and placed post cards on the table where the board members would be sitting. Each post card held information about a school employee about to be laid off.

The scenario that Cleveland School District now faces is one it has often repeated in the past. A few years of modest progress – improvements in test scores and graduation rates – followed by a budget crisis because of lack of growth in the school budget. The budget crisis is followed by massive layoffs, which in turn mean cuts in personnel in the schools, disruption of teaching staffs in individual schools, and a new round of declining test scores and graduation rates.

The CMSD may be able to avert a crisis next year if the Cleveland Teachers Union accepts a 4.6% pay decrease or another cuts in the budget are made. However, the even if the administration and the teachers reach an accord, the CMSD projects a $75 million dollar deficit in the 2011-2012 school year and a $101 million deficit tin the 2012-13 school year. As we have seen the State of Ohio can’t be counted on to provide adequate funding for schools. Federal dollars are possible, but not guaranteed. The best way to assure adequate funding of our local schools is to stop giving away our local tax dollars.

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