James Garcia, Lillith Dunn, Sidney Sutter, Kennedy Sandwisch, Max Roof eSomethin staff
On November 5th, 2024, the voters of Perrysburg decided that a levy intended for Perrysburg Schools should be denied, taking out $13.5 million from the school’s budget.
This decision impacts 130 staff members across all seven Perrysburg schools.
Listen to the podcast interview with Superintendent Tom Hosler and eSomethin reporters James Garcia and Lillith Dunn
With the levy’s failure, multiple programs and positions will be reduced going into the 2025-2026 school year, including but not limited to gifted education services, freshman sports, six field trips, a reduction of clubs in grades K-12, and reduced the district’s ability to help students with mental health needs.
Because of these new financial restrictions, Perrysburg is scrambling to find ways of adapting to this new budget.
Aaron Cookson, PHS’ principal, said “We are trying our very hardest to keep as many things as we can that make Perrysburg High School, Perrysburg High School.”
Perrysburg isn’t the only district to have a levy fail this year. Across Ohio, there were 142 school levies proposed this November. However, 71 of them failed.
“Usually, that number was 73% passing,” said Tom Hosler, superintendent of Perrysburg Schools.
Although a lot of students are sad to see their favorite extracurriculars and teachers go, the higher ups of the district have to make a lot of difficult decisions to determine what must be cut from Perrysburg’s repertoire.
While Perrysburg does have a reserve of cash in case of large budget cuts, it is far from enough to cover the $13.5 million deficit. Because they still need to avoid a deficit, district leadership decided to give each school a target to cut.
In total, the 130 staff cut amounts to $6 million, and the rest is taken from the cash reserves. If the reserve didn’t exist, a lot more people would’ve been let go.
Hosler described it as drawing “a circle around the students,” where the center of the circle is the students, and around it are the classes and extracurriculars, with ones we need the most at the center. “We want to begin cutting as far away from that center, that bullseye as we can,” Hosler explained.
Levies like this one are nothing new to Perrysburg. We have a levy that’s expiring next year, it’s a permanent improvement levy,” Hoster said. As the city grows, more students start attending Perrysburg, meaning we need new, bigger levies in order to fund the students’ needs, which means larger funding coming from taxes. “I think at the end of the day,” Hosler said, “it is that they were just opposed to any new tax.”
While the majority of Perrysburg were content with their vote, there were still a lot of people who disagreed with the outcome. Students like freshman Mona Gill said that “The perception of Perrysburg kind of goes in hand with the quality of the schools.”
Senior Hudsyn Schlatter agreed, describing it as “losing a lot of our culture.” Because so many clubs are going to be cut, she feels a lot of people will lose interest in the football student section, especially if we lose Pride Club.
The class of 2024 student council president, Jack Bowe, said his biggest issue is that his siblings won’t have the same experiences or opportunities as him. “The biggest issue with this levy failing for them is that it is so difficult to find a club or sport that you love, and a group of people that you really connect with.”
A common concern at PHS is the loss of freshman sports. However, that doesn’t mean they’re out of the picture completely. According to the Vice President of Perrysburg Athletic Boosters, Matt Sutter, “Our priority in light of the budget cuts from the school board has become preservation of freshman sports, and we are working to find a collaborative solution with the district’s leadership so that PHS student athletes can still compete in spirit of our mission.”
So while some programs are being cut, it is possible that some freshman sports can remain.
In the end, the future of Perrysburg Schools was decided by the hands of the people who reside in Perrysburg. Now it’s in the hands of the hard-working adults that work to preserve the greatness that is Perrysburg Schools.
