Cincinnati Public Schools’ Board of Education voted 6-1 to rescind its vote to place a 0.75% earned income tax on the November ballot at its Aug. 3 regular meeting.
It marks the first time in decades the board has rescinded a ballot issue, member Eve Bolton told The Enquirer.
People brought posters criticizing the board and some shouted remarks from the audience calling for member Kendra Mapp to resign during the regular business meeting. The meeting came just two days before the county’s Aug. 5 filing deadline for a levy. Mapp was the sole “no” vote in the move to rescind the income tax.
The move comes one week after the board’s polarizing, 5-2 vote in support of what would have been CPS’s first ever earned income tax in a special meeting on July 27. The day after, the executive committee of the Hamilton County Democratic Party voted 50-23 to urge the school board to rethink the levy.
All seven of the school board members are Democrats, though the position is officially nonpartisan.
City and state leaders joined over two dozen others who all spoke in support of a property tax levy as part of public comment on Aug. 3. Included among them were Ohio Sen. Bill Blessing, R-Colerain Township, State Board of Education member Katie Hofmann and former board member Melanie Bates.
While eliciting responses from both of the county’s political parties, the proposed income tax also prompted backlash from community members, with some arguing that CPS has yet to show how it would use the new taxpayer dollars to better educate its students.
Others say the board acted out of political interests with private Cincinnati businesses in pushing for a tax on residents’ income over a tax on property, which is the revenue source historically used to support CPS.
Republican Party Chairman Josh Gerth called the school board’s levy vote “offensive” in a statement shared on July 28, arguing that the region’s largest district is failing to educate its kids. He alluded to CPS’s latest, 2.5-star report card wherein it fell short of the state’s 3-star overall performance goal and the slight rise in its chronic absenteeism rates.
Craig said the Aug. 3 motion to rescind the board’s decision was not motivated by the backlash from either political party, since “We understand and understood their principles around where they’re gonna be.”
“It’s about understanding there’s a community of folks who … have raised concerns” about the earned income tax, he said, adding that he thinks more discussion needs to take place surrounding a levy for the November ballot.
This story will be updated.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati school board votes to rescind earned income tax levy
Reporting by Grace Tucker, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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By Grace Tucker, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
