Tallmadge City Schools — OH

1. Snapshot

Suburb-Large district in southeast Summit County — Akron’s eastern collar between Cuyahoga Falls and Stow. 2,507 students across 3 schools (Tallmadge ES, MS, HS). SAIPE poverty 8.1%. Demographics 74% White / 11% Asian (unusually high for a NE Ohio collar suburb) / 6% Black / 5% Multiracial. Per-pupil expenditure $14,832 (FY2020). Student:teacher ratio 18.7:1.

This is the second attempt of this cycle — Tallmadge ran the same ask in November 2025 and failed; Supt. Wood’s post-election statement explicitly references “prior cost-saving measures…after the November 2025 levy outcome.” Two misses in six months, same ask, in a relatively affluent collar suburb. And this is one of three Summit County / Akron-region CPT income-and-property-tax rejections on the same May 5 ballot (Tallmadge property levy; Twinsburg and Wadsworth income taxes — see §4 / §7). The regional pattern is the story.

2. Why this was a hard sell — community context (ACS)

Median home value $211K is below national but the household-income profile is solidly middle/upper-middle — the household-income-to-home-value ratio is the tell. This is a community that bought in 15–25 years ago and has watched property valuations spike on reappraisal while incomes haven’t kept pace at the same rate. 82.9% owner-occupied + low Gini (0.368) = an unusually homogeneous, settled tax base — and the kind of community most sensitive to a continuing (perpetual) property tax. A 5-year levy would likely have done better than CPT for the same dollar ask; the structural decision to go continuing on the second try amplified the trust problem.

3. Peer comparison

Top peers via MCP (default weights + plantOps emphasis). FMX-customer status resolved against the local benchmarking server.

Confirmed FMX customers in top 15 (2): Kenowa Hills Public Schools (MI), Dearborn Heights School District #7 (MI).

4. The gap story (what the data would have shown voters)

The Tallmadge profile is exactly the campaign Supt. Wood needed to run and didn’t. The “we’ve already been frugal” math is in the numbers:

• Plant operations spending: $965.77 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — Tallmadge spends 27.1% below the national median on facilities upkeep. This is the headline. In a community that just rejected the ask because “taxes keep going up,” the answer is “per student, we are already $358/year cheaper than the typical American school district on the line item voters most associate with waste.”
• Per-pupil instruction: $7,656 — classroom investment protected.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $2.85M — material recent capital activity. Not a deferred-maintenance district at the headline level; the bond/levy story is “preserve operating, fund continuing maintenance from already-thin reserves.”
• Counselor ratio district-wide: 358:1; chronic absenteeism 14.6%, suspension 10.3% — climate metrics are middle-of-pack for an Ohio suburb.
• 3 of 4 schools have a nurse; one does not. Total nurse FTE: 2.5 across the district. That’s a tangible, ballot-shaped staffing line voters can name.
• Teacher-cert and certification line shows 100.6% (CRDC quirk — flagged in source data) but reads as a fully-credentialed teaching corps.

FMX peer operational benchmarks (live)

Pulled live from fmxFacilities for each confirmed FMX-customer peer. These are the actual operational profiles Tallmadge is being measured against — and what the next campaign can cite directly.

Kenowa Hills’ 0% HVAC-of-work-orders is unusual — likely a tracking-taxonomy artifact rather than a no-HVAC-issues miracle; flag for diligence before citing publicly. Dearborn Heights at 14.5% HVAC burden + 90.6% resolution is the comparable proof point.

5. Bond/levy history (web search)

• Nov 4, 2025: 5.6-mill operating levy, failed (first attempt, this cycle)
• May 5, 2026: Same 5.6-mill operating levy, failed again, 45.45% Yes — this one
• District has not previously run a continuing operating levy in the post-2015 window — most prior asks were 5- or 10-year terms. Going CPT on the second try changed the political ask in a community structurally hostile to continuing property taxes.

Wood’s post-election statement: planned reductions total at least $2M for 2026-27 — elective courses cut at the HS, increased pay-to-participate fees, elimination of non-public-school busing. These are the cuts voters will feel before the next ask hits the ballot.

6. What voters / opposition actually said

Per WKYC and the Akron Beacon Journal (via Yahoo), Wood framed the failure as “a reflection of school funding frustrations” — i.e. not a Tallmadge-specific verdict. Signal Akron coverage of the Summit County primary describes the pattern, not the cause: Summit County voters split — library levies passed, school taxes rejected almost across the board. Tallmadge, Twinsburg, Streetsboro, Norton, Barberton — all Summit/Portage school asks went down on the same night. No organized opposition committee surfaces in coverage; this is the structural-frustration pattern, not an organized No campaign.

The OSBA’s Tom Hosler (quoted in Ideastream): “Renewals are holding, but new asks are harder.” Tallmadge’s was a new ask (additional, CPT) — exactly the cohort hit hardest.

7. What we could have told them

1. “We spend $966 per student on plant operations. The national median is $1,324. We’re 27% below the national bar on the very line item voters associate with waste — and the levy is asking for new dollars on top of that under-spend, not catch-up money.” Single most defensible reframe.
2. “This is the third NE Ohio CPT-style ask to fail on the same ballot — Tallmadge tonight, Twinsburg tonight, Wadsworth by 25+ points tonight. The community didn’t vote against Tallmadge schools; the region voted against permanent property taxes on top of post-reappraisal valuations. The next ask is a 5-year levy, not CPT.” Reframe the structural problem, not the campaign.
3. “Kenowa Hills Public Schools (MI) — same enrollment, same locale, same per-pupil spend — runs at 94% work-order resolution on the FMX platform with public-facing dashboards. We could publish ours and let voters audit it. That’s the data layer the next campaign needs.”
4. “Tallmadge HS, MS, and one of two elementaries have nurses. The fourth does not. That’s a $90K/year staffing line the levy would have covered — and a sentence-long ballot-explainer Supt. Wood’s November and May campaigns never put in front of voters.”
5. “Pair the next ask with a published 5-year capital plan + per-building work-order data. Voters in a 32.5% bachelors-plus community read documents. Give them documents.”

8. FMX outreach hook

Tallmadge has 2 confirmed FMX-customer peers in the top 15 set. Both are mid-similarity (92-94%), Michigan-based:

• Kenowa Hills Public Schools (MI, 258 mi, enrollment 2,947, 93.7% similarity) (khps.gofmx.com): 12 buildings tracked; 93.9% work-order resolution rate; 3,470 total work orders captured; HVAC-burden field reads 0% (verify taxonomy before citing — likely a tagging quirk).
• Dearborn Heights SD #7 (MI, 124 mi, enrollment ~2,877, 92.4% similarity) (dearbornschools.gofmx.com): 38 buildings tracked; 90.6% work-order resolution; 14.5% HVAC burden; 5,376 work orders captured.

Opener for the call: “Two misses in six months on the same ask — November and now May, same 5.6-mill structure, same outcome. Your top-similarity FMX peers (Kenowa Hills MI and Dearborn Heights SD #7) publish work-order resolution rates and HVAC burden voters in a 32.5% bachelors-plus community can audit. We can have your facilities portfolio benchmarked against them inside 60 days, in time to back a re-scoped 5-year ask for November 2026.”

Lead with Supt. Wood as the named decision-maker (Treasurer/Operations not surfaced in OSBA). The November 2025 + May 2026 paired-fail pattern is the conversation hook — third attempt in 12 months is where the data layer becomes load-bearing. Validate the named FMX peers above against the internal customer list before outbound — these were resolved via the local benchmarking server’s fmx_profiles join.