By MARIA KACIK Staff Writer

MEDINA TWP. — Cloverleaf Local School District’s second attempt to renew an emergency levy that will expire at the end of the year failed with 52 percent of votes against the levy.

Nevertheless, school officials said this will not be the last attempt.

If the current levy is not renewed by the end of the year, Superintendent Bruce Hulme said the district would face fiscal emergency.

“There’s no question about that,” he said Tuesday night.

According to unofficial results from the Medina County Board of Elections, there were 3,473 votes for the levy and 3,823 against.

The 5.7-mill levy would have generated $2.84 million annually, a spokeswoman from the Medina County Auditor’s Office said. It would have cost property owners $179.50 per $100,000 of appraised value each year, she said.

In November, 57 percent of voters cast ballots against renewing the levy.

The current levy, a three-year emergency levy which will expire at the end of the year, costs residents $189 per $100,000 of appraised value annually, the auditor‘s office spokeswoman said. It generates roughly the same amount of money as the proposed levy, but the new levy has a different millage because last year’s reappraisals showed a rise in property values.

Hulme said the current levy provides about 11 percent of the district’s total budget.

“There’s no way that we can eliminate 11 percent of the budget and be able to operate the schools effectively,” said Mike Schmidt, school board president.

The current levy passed in August 2005 as part of the financial recovery plan the district devised after being placed under fiscal watch by the Ohio Department of Education.

The plan included $3.3 million in budget cuts throughout 2004 and 2005 and the closing of Lafayette and Chatham elementary schools. In 2006, voters approved a permanent 0.5 percent income tax for operating expenses the district put on the ballot as part of the plan.

Hulme said since the district has been under fiscal watch for the last four years, a member of the Ohio Department of Education has visited monthly to oversee the district’s finances.

In May 2007, Medina County voters passed a 0.5 percent, 30-year sales tax which will go toward permanent improvement projects in each of the county’s school districts and cannot be used for operating expenses. This year Cloverleaf is projected to receive about $1 million from the tax.

Hulme has said the district would use the money toward building an elementary school in the future.

Tuesday’s levy failure “means we spend more time, energy and effort … and put it back (on the ballot) again,” said Hulme, who will retire effective July 31.

“There’s the possibility of either August or November and we’ll have to weight the options,” Schmidt said.

Kacik may be reached at 330-721-4049 or mkacik@ohio.net.