Cleveland Metropolitan School District levy amount will be announced Wednesday

CLEVELAND - Cleveland voters will find out Wednesday night how big of a levy they'll be asked to pass for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District this November.

CEO Eric Gordon will make his recommendation at a special school board meeting at 6:30.

"I'm going to focus on the Cleveland Plan's outcomes. What people should expect in better achievement and making us whole, so that we can restore the cuts that we've made," Gordon said in an interview with NewsChannel5.

The Cleveland Plan is the package of education reforms signed into law by Ohio Gov. John Kasich in early July. While Gordon won't say how much of a levy he will recommend to the school board, it would have to be able to finance the transformation as well as daily operations, including salaries, in a district that faced a $65 million budget deficit earlier this year.

"It'll be the first time in Cleveland's history that it will not be a continuing levy," Gordon said. "We will be held accountable and if voters don't believe that we've honored out commitments, they don't have to renew it."

The last time an operating levy passed in the Cleveland school district was 1996. Voters also passed a bond issue in 2001 to raise money to repair buildings. Levy attempts in 2004 and 2005 both failed.

When asked if the Cleveland Plan will die without the levy Gordon said, "I never say die. I am always working to try to make it better. It certainly doesn't make it easier to be successful and it certainly will slow down our ability to be successful in the short term."