BROOKFIELD — Trying to assure Brookfield residents that increasing taxes isn’t something “anyone wants to do” but wary of an emergency state takeover of school district operations, the school directors voted 4 to 1 in favor of placing a one-percent income tax levy on the November ballot.

That amount of local wage tax will bring the district about $1.4 million annually, for the next five years, according to Superintendent Tim Saxton. He said a family who earns an adjusted gross income of $23,000 would pay $230 more a year or “63 cents a day.” There are about 9,000 residents in Brookfield township.

The school district is currently facing a $449,000 budget deficit and if uncorrected, will face a $2.9 million deficit in four years, according to a state audit done last March.

During a meeting Thursday night, Saxton gave a brief power-point presentation explaining that a loss of state revenue, not only to Brookfield but most Ohio school districts, is largely responsible for the shortfall. The district is under a “fiscal watch” by the state, according to Saxton and the next step, if the deficit spending isn’t stopped, is a “fiscal emergency” which allows state education officials to dictate operations.

Saxton told the audience of about 25 that once the state steps in, local control over what services, classes and programs are offered, is lost. He and a finance committee made up of school directors, parents, principals, the board treasurer, school bus drivers and educational aides have been meeting in recent months to hammer out ways of decreasing costs and increasing income.

So far, six teachers have been laid off, Saxton said, and about 14 support services positions are “on the chopping block,” he said. Some of the cost-cutting measures the committee considered included additional staffing reductions, switching healthcare insurance providers to get a better rate, going paperless, reducing field trips, charging students more for parking and negotiating with labor unions for further concessions. Saxton said much of this has already been done, but all together the savings only nets about $525,000, not enough to bring the district out of debt.

Two items that were discussed but ruled out included a pay-to-play fee for extracurricular activities and a $40 “academic fee” for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. “It’s being done in other districts. But it’s off the table here,” he said.  He said costs for providing quality education are going up while revenue goes down. “A reading program for kindergarten through fourth grade costs $100,000 just for supplemental texts,” he said.

He also said he wanted to correct a “misconception” that residents may have after a levy was passed in 2007 that paid for construction of the new school campus that consolidated all grades into one building. “The money that was raised to build this great new building is separate from money need to operate. We cannot ever dip into that money for operating expenses,” he said.

“We understand the economy is not the greatest, we understand it. But we need help,” Saxton said.

Several people asked the board how they decided on an income tax rather than a property tax and board vice president Kelly Bianco said that she felt an income tax was fair and said a 25-year study of the wage base shows an average increase in income of two percent a year. She also said that to raise $1.4 million annually the district needs to stay out of debt and avoid a fiscal emergency would translate to a 9.1 mill increase in property taxes. “And we don’t stand a snowball’s chance of passing a 9-mill tax hike,” she said.

Board member Gwen Martino said “it makes me sick that we cut home ec and shop and the librarian. We don’t want to do this. We don’t have any excess in the district. We have passes two levies in Brookfield in 24 years. We’re not asking too much,” she said.

Director Tim Filipovich echoed her statements. “We’re all taxed enough. We don’t like it. We don’t want to do it but the state doesn’t give us a choice. We know that $230 a year to someone making $23,000 is a lot of money.”

Dr. Ronald Brennan was the only board member to vote against the tax. He said he thinks the budget needed to be reviewed “line by line” and would like to see additional cuts made, as well as some discussion about possible revenue from oil and gas leases. The district has 46.5 acres that it is in the process of leasing to BP, for $3,800 an acre, he said. He is also concerned that while Social Security is exempted from the tax, seniors who have private pensions or other income will pay tax on that. “It is possible to be taxed out of your home. It happened to my mother,” he said.

He also said that while he supports the contracts negotiated with the unions he thinks there is room to renegotiate. He added that he doesn’t like “how it looks” that school administrators received raises in the last year.