Pickerington Online welcomes readers to submit Letters to the Editor. The opinions expressed in these letters are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor or staff. Letters emailed to editor@pickeringtononline.com will be posted on both the organization’s website and social media within a few days of receipt, unless the contributor specifies a preferred publication time.

May 1, 2026

To the Editor:

I am writing today as a candidate for state representative for northern Fairfield County. I’ve been traveling around the area and spending time speaking to people about their concerns, and naturally the levy has been top of mind for many residents.

There’s been a lot of discussion about how the school district needs to take responsibility for its finances – that they should be able to plan around this. That’s all well and good, but it’s leaving out an important part: Where is the discussion of responsibility for the state legislature that took that money away in the first place? It would be one thing if this were part of larger fiscal issues, but the same budget that took hundreds of millions from our schools managed to find money to give to private school vouchers and to cut income tax at the top yet again. I don’t see how any organization could be expected to make a “responsible” budget that avoids shortfalls when tens of millions of dollars are taken away suddenly.

Indeed, the continued cuts at the statehouse are also part of another major topic this election: the property tax issue. The more the state cuts funding for schools or firefighters or any other service our communities depend on, the more local areas have to make up that funding themselves. Property tax is the primary way our local governments can make money. Our continued lowering of income tax rates goes hand in hand with our property tax rates being some of the highest in the entire country. Income tax is also a much fairer system than property taxes since it’s based on how much money you made that year and not what someone else has decided the land you own happens to be worth right now.

So the responsibility falls to you to do the right thing for your schools, because our leaders have decided it must be so. In his comments recently, Mr. LaRe correctly pointed out that Pickerington is not the only district having this problem. Every school district in the state is going to be facing this problem sooner or later. Pickerington just happened to be one of the first. The part he left out, of course, is that he is one of the people who voted to put the state in this situation in the first place. Indeed, as the statehouse keeps redirecting our tax dollars away from public schools toward their voucher program, the demands being placed on local districts will only keep increasing.

To be clear, this levy is not going to permanently solve the school funding problem. This is a necessary bandaid on a wound that will keep getting worse until we address it at the source. Schools like Pickerington’s do not come about by accident – these are the product of many years of decisions and support that go into offering excellent services, and these services help draw people to the area. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to get rid of things than it is to build them up. Keeping what we already have requires a focused effort and taking the issue seriously.

Long term, the only solution will be to elect new representatives that treat education as seriously as it deserves. We need to properly fund schools, like so many other things, at the state level. And by doing so we can also help address the property tax issue that’s causing so much pain in Fairfield County and Ohio as a whole. In the meantime, I encourage you to make your voices heard at the ballot box and support this levy on May 5th.

Sincerely,

Andrew Foltz
Democratic Candidate – Ohio House District 73
foltzforfairfield@gmail.com