Pickerington Local Schools has suspended every athletic team below the varsity level, along with a range of other extracurricular activities, after voters narrowly rejected the district’s income tax levy, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch summarized this week by FootballScoop. The suspension took effect November 4, one day after the November 3 vote.
The 0.75% income tax levy, a 10-year measure that would have taken effect January 1, failed by around 250 votes — less than 1% of ballots cast — in unofficial results reported by The Columbus Dispatch. WBNS 10TV put the margin at fewer than 300 votes with all 47 precincts reporting, and reported the levy would have raised about $21 million a year, enough to keep the district solvent through fiscal year 2031.
It was the district’s second levy defeat in six months. In May, voters rejected a 1.25% income tax by 3,379 votes, according to ABC6 reporting cited by FootballScoop, and the district responded by cutting more than $5 million, including staff, programs and higher athletic fees, The Columbus Dispatch reported. The Dispatch reported the district now faces a $21 million deficit, based on figures presented to the school board.
Varsity teams were spared. Superintendent Charles Smialek told The Columbus Dispatch the district kept varsity sports so students holding scholarship offers would not be hurt, while acknowledging the cost to the programs beneath them. “You’re not going to field high-quality varsity teams if you don’t have your own feeder system,” Smialek told The Columbus Dispatch. “We don’t want to take that step back and that’s why we’re going to try and make this as short-term as we can.”
The suspension reaches beyond the playing fields. WOSU Public Media reported that National Honor Society and student council are also among the activities affected, and Smialek told WOSU that early projections call for cutting 24 high school teachers and 17 middle school teachers, stressing those are “not final numbers.” The Columbus Dispatch also reported that athletic fees will rise in two phases in 2027 despite the loss of lower-level programs.
The timing softens the first blow but not the lasting one. Fall sub-varsity schedules were mostly finished by November, so the first teams hit are in winter sports and offseason training. The deeper effect arrives in later years, when freshmen and junior-varsity players would normally be developing into varsity starters — in a district whose Pickerington Central program is a 27-time playoff qualifier with Division I state titles in 2017 and 2019, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
“We understand the value of extracurriculars, we understand the experiences they create. It’s difficult,” Smialek told The Columbus Dispatch. “These are among the harder decisions most of us have ever had to take.” The district plans to consider another levy for the May ballot, and Smialek said more cuts will come even if it passes — meaning Pickerington families will be living with this fall’s few hundred votes for some time.