COLUMBIANA — The city school district is not pleased with city’s Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) program, but the city isn’t convinced a change is necessary.

The city and school were working toward an agreement last month via their respective legal counsels, but city council has since decided to seek a public meeting with the entire board of education to discuss the matter.

Specifically, the city doesn’t see how the program is negatively affecting the school district financially, in response to the district’s complaint that the property tax abatements — specifically for residential projects — are a “burden.”

The city offers up to a 15 year, 100 percent property tax abatement for new home construction projects.

District Superintendent Don Mook said last month (prior to the city council meeting in which it was decided to pursue a public meeting) that even though the district has a good financial outlook, it does not mean that everything is great.

“We (the board and administration) believe that thriving business bring families that want to make their homes here in Columbiana. With that said, our district is at the 20 mil floor and would traditionally realize true property tax increases through new construction. The residential CRA has mostly eliminated those true revenue increases that the district would realize outside of reevaluations by the county auditors and normal increases from personal income,” he said.

He went on to say that due to the CRA, construction in the district outside of the city limits, that does not have the tax incentive, “have come to a virtual halt.”

“This places the district on a 15-year holding pattern for new construction revenues,” he said.

He went on to say that the board understands the city’s objectives for growth, but believes that a 15-year residential abatement is “excessive.”

Mook has been with the Columbiana School District for 15 years and he noted that during that time the district has recovered from the 2008 housing crisis where spending was at a minimum.

“We had two buildings in major need of repair: Joshua Dixon Elementary and South Side Middle School. At the time, the 1950s Joshua Dixon building was a priority to revitalize,” he said.

As a result, the board of education at that time worked with then district treasurer Lori Posey to leverage a loan on the Columbiana High School facility to completely refurbish Joshua Dixon.

“That loan is currently being paid through 2038,” he said.

Furthermore, he said the district did not have funding to take care of the issues at South Side Middle school, so the district sought a bond issue, but it failed three times, leaving the district to make repairs to the building over the last eight years using money from the general fund budget.

“We do not know what the future holds. So, we have a major concern that future needs for the district to pass a levy with the current (no end in sight) abatements being issued by the city will severally handicap our ability to raise necessary revenues,” he said.

In the meantime, the district is continuing to make repairs to its old buildings while every district in the county has had or will have brand new facilities, he added.

“We do this while being criticized by the mayor for having a five year forecast that is in the black because of the three year property evaluation increase by the state, higher overall income with our school districts’ citizens and one time ESSER funds that propped our schools up during COVID,” he said.

He reiterated that unless something changes to the CRA program he is not sure the board of education will be willing to agree with commercial abatements beyond the 75 percent threshold.

However, city officials say that a change was already made to the residential aspect of the CRA program.

A few months ago city council approved a change in which the owner of a house must live in the house to get the automatic 15 year, 100 percent tax abatement, assuming they turn in the application as required by the ordinance.

The change was recommended by the city’s CRA team and was for the purpose of limiting tax abatements to owner/occupied constructions for residential classifications.

“The city has already made one change to the residential CRA. We did not even get credit for trying to meet the school half way. The city may want to consider repealing that change if it does not meet the school’s needs,” Mayor Rick Noel said.

In the meantime, the city is expected to make decisions on four commercial and industrial project applications on file for CRA agreement requests.

The requests are from Tractor Supply/Dollar Tree, Blue Ribbon Chiropractic, the new Memory Care Center for Whispering Pines, and a new housing development off Eureko Road proposed by APL. The units will not be owner occupied, City Manager Lance Willard said.