Five of the six candidates addressed the biggest issue looming over the November election for three open seats on the Columbus City Schools' Board of Education: budget cuts.
The district still faces a $50 million deficit and some tough choices ahead to address the budget shortfall. This includes potential cuts to high school busing and staffing or more school closures.
Candidates Patrick Katzenmeyer, Janeece Keyes, Mounir Lynch, Kimberley Mason and Antoinette Miranda fielded questions on the topic and more issues facing the district from Columbus Dispatch Executive Editor Michael Shearer and Opinion and Community Engagement Editor Amelia Robinson at the newspaper's Tuesday debate.
Jermaine Kennedy was the only candidate absent from the debate.
Early voting is ongoing until the weekend before the election on Nov. 4.
Candidates talk cuts to staff pay, benefits ahead of district meeting.
Candidates were asked about their positions on cutting pay, benefits and working conditions. The reality of cutting services and closing schools has been at the center of the election for three open seats on the school board.
Janeece Keyes argued the district is top heavy with administrators. She suggested auditing the district in that area.
Keyes said teachers, who she said are essential to children being successful, shouldn't experience any deficits to benefits that they receive.
"Our teachers need to be rewarded, need to be compensated for the hard work that they do to ensure that our students are educated," Keyes said.
Mason said she knows personally about how budget cuts can affect people after her role in diversity and inclusion efforts was cut due to federal rollbacks.
She expressed reluctance to support cuts to staffing.
"Ideally, nobody wants to see anybody lose jobs," Mason said.
Katzenmeyer also said he would be hard pressed to cut salaries for any teacher or other staff members who are union members.
"The teachers and the non-teacher staff members in this district are educating and watching out for my children every day. So I care about them deeply," Katzenmeyer said.
Miranda said teachers, but also the support staff, instructional aides, bus drivers are critical to education. She said when the district thinks about cuts, they have to be strategic.
Miranda suggested cutting unfilled positions as an option.
"Attrition would be the first thing to look at. What attrition will happen, or positions that are open that we don't...have not filled. And if we do that, then hopefully we won't have to cut into the meat," Miranda said.
The district plans to discuss staffing levels at an upcoming committee meeting.
Candidates cast doubt on COTA bus passes as alternative to high school busing.
One of the other topics was possible cuts to high school busing. The district is considering options to reduce high spending on transportation in the district, including switching to paying for Central Ohio Transit Authority bus passes.
Miranda said these cuts may be the reality board members face when they take office. But Miranda was skeptical of a plan to pay for the COTA passes.
"So we have not really good public transportation. So maybe what we need to do is collaborate with COTA to see how they can assist with our issue in terms of paying drivers, maybe we can pay them more money," Miranda said.
Lynch, a graduate of Columbus Alternative High School, said it isn't feasible to eliminate buses, which is the only way many students can get to school.
Lynch said he tested taking a COTA bus to CAHS. Lynch said he woke up around 5:15 a.m. and it took him an hour and a half, including a mile walk to the bus stop.
"That is going to be the case across the city, because if you live in Columbus and have lived here throughout your life, like I have, you know that we don't exactly have the most efficient public transit system in the first place," Lynch said.
Lynch said CCS needs to do a better job of recruiting job candidates to work as district bus drivers.
The full forum can be viewed online at The Columbus Dispatch's website or on the newspaper's YouTube page.
