Wadsworth City Schools — OH

1. Snapshot

Suburb-Large district in southwestern Medina County — Akron’s western collar, ~15 miles west of Akron proper, ~30 miles south of Cleveland. 4,275 students across 10 schools (largest district in this seven-district batch). SAIPE poverty 5.8% — the lowest poverty rate in the batch. Demographics 90% White / 4% Hispanic / 4% Multiracial / 1% Black / 1% Asian — most racially homogeneous of the seven. Per-pupil expenditure $12,884 (FY2020). Student:teacher ratio 16.8:1.

The blowout of the cohort. 30.38% Yes / 69.62% No is a near-2:1 rejection in an affluent Akron collar suburb that needed the levy to close a $6M deficit. 3,243 votes against. This isn’t a campaign-design problem — this is a community that has rejected the structural ask. This is the third Summit/Medina-region CPT additional-tax rejection on the same May 5 ballot (Twinsburg Income CPT lost by 25.5 pts; Tallmadge Property CPT lost by 9 pts; Wadsworth Income CPT lost by 39 pts). The regional pattern is unmissable — and Wadsworth is the strongest expression of it.

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

The community profile should support this levy. $78K HHI, 40% bachelor’s-plus, 71% owner-occupied — this is the demographic that historically votes for school funding in NE Ohio collar suburbs. A 1.5% earned-income tax on $78K HHI = ~$1,170/year for a typical Wadsworth household. The math is affordable. The 69.62% No is therefore not about affordability — it’s a community-trust verdict on the district or on the structural ask.

Two structural reads: 1. Continuing (CPT) income tax is the most politically expensive structure in 2026’s Ohio environment. The same district running a 5-year additional or a property-tax-to-income-tax substitution would likely have done meaningfully better. The structure cost them 15+ points. 2. The district communicated the failure consequence in advance (per Cleveland 19, Wadsworth Today): “elimination of busing for high schoolers and families who live within two miles of an elementary school, more staffing cuts and increased pay-to-participate fees.” Voters heard the consequences and still voted no by 39 points. That’s the harder finding — this is not a “they didn’t understand the stakes” failure. They understood. They voted no anyway.

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 (3): Anthony Wayne Local (OH — Toledo metro), Loveland City (OH), Grain Valley R-V (MO). Strong peer set — and Anthony Wayne has the most complete operational data layer in this entire seven-district batch.

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

Wadsworth’s data position is the most defensible “we’re already lean” story in the batch — and the campaign clearly never put it in the right format in front of voters:

• Plant operations spending: $1,088.91 / pupil vs national median $1,324 — Wadsworth spends 17.8% below the national median on facilities upkeep. Less under-spent than Troy, Twinsburg, Tallmadge in this batch — but the absolute dollar spend on a 4,275-student district is real money: $4.65M/year on plant ops. Voters can audit it. “For every student in Wadsworth schools, we spend $235/year less than the national average on the maintenance line — and the levy is to fund operating shortfall, not capital expansion.”
• Per-pupil instruction: $7,269 — solid; classroom investment protected.
• Capital construction outlay (FY2020): $1,129,000 — modest recent capital activity. Not a deferred-maintenance distress signal at the headline level.
• Chronic absenteeism: 18.8%, suspension 4.0%, total expulsions: 3 across 10 schools. Strong climate metrics — better than the Ohio peer median.
• Counselor ratio district-wide: 339:1 — peer-typical; counseling is adequately staffed.
• 8 of 9 schools (with data) have a nurse. Total nurse FTE: 1.0. That’s a peculiar split — 8 of 9 have a nurse on staff but total district nurse FTE is 1.0 — likely indicates shared-nurse coverage across multiple buildings. Worth diligence.
• Security FTE: 3.0 across 10 schools — middle-of-pack.
• Admin FTE: 38.87 — highest in the seven-district batch by far. Per-pupil admin FTE = 0.91 admins per 100 students; the next-highest in the batch is Twinsburg at 0.43. This is a number opposition didn’t surface — but if a community is rejecting a levy 69-31, they may have already done their own audit.

FMX peer operational benchmarks (live)

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

Anthony Wayne is the headline FMX proof point in the entire seven-district batch. 96% similarity, 17 buildings, 517,552 sqft tracked, 98.3% work-order resolution, 11.1 work-orders per 1,000 sqft, 4.1% HVAC burden, 5,740 work orders captured. Same state, comparable size, comparable poverty rate, comparable per-pupil spend. This is exactly the dashboard Wadsworth could publish to demonstrate the operational discipline a 69-31 rejection says voters don’t currently believe exists.

5. Bond/levy history (web search)

Per Cleveland 19 and Wadsworth Today coverage:

• Pre-May 2026: District had already outlined ~$2M in reductions regardless of levy outcome, including ~20 staff cuts via attrition/elimination. Communicated openly before the vote.
• May 5, 2026: 1.5% income tax CPT additional, failed 30.38% Yes — 39-point blowout
• Post-failure (announced pre-vote): another $2M in reductions on top — elimination of high-school busing and elementary busing within 2 miles, more staffing cuts, increased pay-to-participate fees

Wadsworth’s prior levy history isn’t surfaced in the available coverage — would be a useful data point for outreach (AE should validate whether this was a first-time income tax ask vs. a prior re-attempt).

6. What voters / opposition actually said

District-side message (Cleveland 19, pre-vote): “The underlying issue is limited revenue growth over the past five years, not poor financial practices.” That’s the district anticipating the “fiscal mismanagement” critique — which suggests the district already knew the trust deficit existed.

No organized opposition committee surfaces in coverage. The Ideastream wrap-up frames Wadsworth as one of the 10 (of 11) NE Ohio income-tax asks that lost on the same night — not an isolated community-trust rupture, but the regional pattern at its sharpest expression.

The signal worth weighing: the district did run a campaign (levy meetings, Cleveland 19 coverage, pre-vote consequence framing). Wadsworth is not Troy — there was no silent-campaign vacuum. Voters heard the case, weighed it, and rejected it 69-31. This is a campaign-quality-not-enough failure, not a campaign-doesn’t-exist failure. The next ask needs a structurally different premise, not a better-funded campaign on the same premise.

7. What we could have told them — strategic, not tactical

Wadsworth at 30% Yes is past the threshold where campaign-design fixes the result. The community has rejected the structure. The strategic implications:

1. “This is a 39-point loss. It’s the third NE Ohio CPT additional-tax rejection on the same night (Twinsburg lost by 25.5 pts; Tallmadge property CPT by 9 pts; you by 39 pts). The community is not voting on Wadsworth schools — they’re voting against permanent additional taxes during a post-reappraisal property-tax-frustration cycle. The next ask cannot be CPT.” Regional context = the political ceiling for this structure.
2. “We spend $1,089 per student on plant operations vs the national median of $1,324 — 17.8% below the national bar. Per-pupil instruction $7,269. Capital construction $1.1M. The community needs to be able to audit these numbers between elections, not just at the ballot. The lack of an operational dashboard is the structural trust problem — not your communications team.”
3. “Admin FTE per 100 students: 0.91 — the highest in your Ohio May-5 cohort. (Twinsburg 0.43, Tallmadge 0.60, Troy 0.38.) Whether or not the comparison is fair, voters in a 39%-bachelors-plus community will run the math. The next ask needs to either justify the admin headcount, restructure it, or accept that opponents will lead with this number.” This is the hardest finding in Wadsworth’s profile — but it’s better to surface internally before opposition does.
4. “For the next ask: not CPT. 5-year additional, and paired with a sunsetting offset (retire a property mill, replace with the income tax). A net-neutral substitution voters can read on a single ballot is the only structure with a path through a 39-point hostile electorate.”
5. “Anthony Wayne Local (Toledo metro, 112 mi, same enrollment, same per-pupil spend, same poverty rate) publishes 98.3% work-order resolution rate, 11.1 WO/1K sqft, 517,552 sqft tracked, 4.1% HVAC burden on FMX — today. The next 18-month window is the time to build that same data layer for Wadsworth, then run a re-structured ask in May 2027 or November 2027 backed by operational transparency the community can actually verify.”

8. FMX outreach hook

Wadsworth has 3 confirmed FMX-customer peers in the top 15 set — and Anthony Wayne Local is the strongest single proof point in the entire seven-district batch:

• Anthony Wayne Local (OH, 112 mi — Toledo metro, enrollment 4,135, 96.3% similarity) (awls.gofmx.com): 17 buildings; 517,552 sqft tracked; 98.3% work-order resolution; 11.1 work orders per 1,000 sqft; 4.1% HVAC burden; 5,740 work orders captured. Most complete operational data layer in the seven-district outreach package.
• Loveland City (OH, 182 mi, 94.3% similarity) (lovelandschools.gofmx.com): 9 buildings tracked. Data layer not yet populated.
• Grain Valley R-V (MO, 676 mi, 94.0% similarity) (grainvalleyschools.gofmx.com): 14 buildings; 4.0-year average portfolio age (very new construction); 93.2% work-order resolution; 11.0% HVAC burden; 1,811 work orders captured.

Opener for the call: “You lost 69-31 — that’s a structural rejection, not a campaign-design problem. Your top-similarity FMX peer is Anthony Wayne Local (Toledo metro, same enrollment, same per-pupil spend, same poverty rate) publishing 98% work-order resolution and 517,000 sqft tracked. The 18-month gap to your next viable ask is exactly the operational-transparency-build window FMX is designed for. We’re not selling you a campaign — we’re selling you a dashboard the next ballot has to be able to point to.”

Lead with Supt. Andrew Hill. The Wadsworth engagement framing is “this is not a fix-the-campaign engagement; it’s a 12-18 month operational-transparency rebuild for a structurally different next ask (5-year additional, sunsetting offset, or restructured ballot).” Anthony Wayne’s data layer is the single strongest peer dashboard in the seven-district package — this is the call where the dashboard does the selling. 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.