by Chuck Hoven

   (Plain Press April 2024) In a March 11, 2024 article in Signal Cleveland titled “Cash-strapped Cleveland schools miss out on millions from tax abatements”, reporter Nick Castele notes that over the past five years “Cleveland schools lost out on a total of $201.8 million in abated taxes, or an average of $28.8 million a year.” The article also provides information on how much in property tax would go to the Cleveland Schools if Rocket Mortgage Field House, Progressive Field, and the Cleveland Browns Stadium were not exempt from paying property.

NEWS ANALYSIS

   The Signal Cleveland article notes that the schools ‘portion of the two Gateway stadiums would be $6.5 million this year. The article also notes that if the Brown’s Stadium were paying property taxes on its current value of $271.3 million, it would cost the City of Cleveland almost $9.5 million this year. “Of that, $5.5 million would go from the City’s General Fund to CMSD”, says the article in Signal Cleveland.

   The amount of the payment owed for the Browns’ Stadium is significant, because in 1995 when the new stadium was being built and the tax exemption for the stadium was granted by the State of Ohio, public promises were made that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District would be made whole. It was promised that the school system would not lose any revenue it would have received if the stadium was required to pay property taxes.

   To raise the funds to fulfill this promise made to the Cleveland schools Mayor Michael White and Councilman Jay Westbrook sponsored legislation (1025-A-95) that called for three taxes to generate revenue that could be used for “recreational, cultural and extracurricular programs in the Cleveland Public Schools, a portion of the costs of renovating, improving and maintaining the municipal stadium and other municipal services.”

   The three taxes were designated to cover the costs outlined in the legislation: a parking tax, a motor vehicle leasing tax, and an admissions tax.

   While these taxes generate more than enough money to meet the promise made to the Cleveland Public Schools, the promise has not been kept.

   The Cleveland Metropolitan School System has a program called the Comprehensive Extracurricular Activities Program (CEAP) which was set up to use the funds provided by the City of Cleveland because of the 1025-A-95 Ordinance. In the early years of the program that amount was about $2 million per year. In around 2010, Mayor Frank Jackson lowered the amount to $1 million, and it remained at $1 million or less for the remainder of his tenure in office. Meanwhile, the amount given to the Browns’ stadium each year for repairs was substantially more. Under Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration the amount given to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District from the funds was increased slightly to $1.125 million. The amount given the current budget for the Browns’ stadium repairs was $15 million.

   The sad truth is that the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Comprehensive Extracurricular Activities Program has been short changed for years. A promise to make the school system whole for the property tax exemption given to the stadium has been broken.

   In Roldo Bartimole’s recent book, Power, Who Governs Cleveland, he reprints an article from 2013 that indicates the property tax on the Browns’ stadium would have been $8 million in 2013, about half of which would have gone to the Cleveland schools. This indicates that from 2013 on, the City of Cleveland should have been sending at least $4 million a year to the CMSD to fund the Comprehensive Extracurricular Activities Program, when it was only sending about $1 million a year. Now, with Signal Cleveland’s publication of the current amount due, we have another price point for the ever-increasing schools’ portion of property taxes that would have been charged to the stadium if it were not tax exempt — $5.5 million for the 2023 schools’ portion of the property taxes.

   Some City Council members protested vehemently when the Cleveland Metropolitan School District broke a promise to students on how the dollars from the MacKenzie Scott $20 million dollar grant to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District would be spent. The broken promise by the City of Cleveland to fund extracurricular activities now amounts to over $4 million a year. Over the last decade the amount the schools have been shortchanged by the City of Cleveland amounts to over $30 million. Where is the outrage from Cleveland City Council?

   Cleveland City Council just passed another budget for the City of Cleveland and again gave the Cleveland Browns’ stadium $15 million and shortchanged the Cleveland school students again with only $1.125 million for the Comprehensive Extracurricular Activities Program.

   Steps need to be taken so this doesn’t happen again with next year’s budget. Students that participate in the CEAP program have better school attendance than their peers, this results in improved academic performance and higher graduation rates. The after-school programs also enable working parents to be assured their children will have a safe place to stay while they are at work. The absence of the after-school programs often results in working parents seeking a school that has after-school programs. This means Cleveland school lose students and the state funding that comes with each student.