Pickerington Local Schools has suspended every athletic team below the varsity level, along with other extracurricular activities, in a sweeping round of cuts that took effect November 4, one day after voters narrowly rejected the district’s income tax levy, according to reporting by The Columbus Dispatch.
The 0.75% income tax levy failed by around 250 votes, less than 1% of the ballots cast, in unofficial results reported by The Columbus Dispatch. 10TV reported the margin as fewer than 300 votes with all 47 precincts reporting. The 10-year levy would have taken effect January 1 and raised about $21 million a year, enough to keep the district solvent through fiscal year 2031, 10TV reported.
The Columbus Dispatch reported the district faces a $21 million deficit, based on figures presented to the school board. For Pickerington families, the suspension means freshman and junior varsity teams are gone for now, and the first programs to feel it are winter sports and offseason training, since most fall sub-varsity schedules had already finished by November.
It was the district’s second levy defeat in six months. In May, voters rejected a larger 1.25% income tax by 3,379 votes, according to ABC6 reporting. After that loss, the district cut more than $5 million, including staff and programs, and raised athletic fees, The Columbus Dispatch reported — and still ended up back before voters this fall with a smaller request.
Varsity sports survive the cuts. Superintendent Charles Smialek told The Columbus Dispatch the district kept varsity teams so that students holding scholarship offers would not be hurt. But he acknowledged the long-term risk to programs built on development, telling The Dispatch, “You’re not going to field high-quality varsity teams if you don’t have your own feeder system,” and adding that the district wants to make the suspension as short-term as it can.
The suspension reaches well past athletics. WOSU reported that the National Honor Society and student council are also among the activities affected. More staff cuts are coming as well: Smialek told WOSU that early projections call for cutting 24 high school teachers and 17 middle school teachers, though he stressed those are not final numbers.
“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.” Even with lower-level teams suspended, The Dispatch reported athletic fees will still rise in two phases come 2027.
What we know — and what we’re still waiting on: What is confirmed is the suspension itself, its November 4 start, the levy’s narrow defeat and the district’s $21 million deficit figure, all as reported by The Columbus Dispatch, 10TV and WOSU. What is not yet final is the full list of staff cuts — the teacher numbers Smialek described to WOSU are early projections — and whether the board will place a new levy request on the May ballot, and at what rate.
Smialek told WOSU that affordability was likely the biggest factor at the ballot box. “Gas prices continue to be high. Inflation continues to be higher,” he told WOSU. “So when we’re going and asking for more, I mean, we’re definitely meeting up against the folks who are giving everything they can.”
The stakes are unusually visible in Pickerington, one of Ohio’s storied high school football communities. Pickerington Central is a 27-time playoff qualifier with Division I state titles in 2017 and 2019, according to The Columbus Dispatch, and six former Pickerington players are in the NFL. Pickerington North is the district’s other high school, and both schools’ younger athletes now face a winter without school teams.
Pickerington is not alone in this squeeze. Across the state, districts that lost levies on November 3 are now mapping out cuts — NewsForce247 reported earlier today that nine Southwest Ohio school levies failed, putting millions in cuts ahead — while at least one district that won its levy says the victory lets it avoid state fiscal caution, as in Cincinnati Public Schools’ levy win.
What happens next: the district plans to look at another levy for the May ballot, and Smialek told The Columbus Dispatch more cuts will come even if that levy passes. Until then, Pickerington’s sub-varsity athletes, and the clubs suspended alongside them, wait on a decision that a few hundred votes made in November — and that a future election could begin to reverse.