Letter: Earned income tax ‘shifts burden from...seniors’

To the editor:

Like most residents, we chose to raise our family in Granville for two primary reasons: the amazing quality of Granville schools and the overwhelming sense of community, conscientiousness and social responsibility that makes Granville such a special place. It is for these same reasons that we strongly support the passage of the 1.25% income tax levy.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently ranked our school district the #2 district in the entire state for academic achievement. We want to continue to provide our students with a whole child education that prepares them for life. We want them to be engaged in not only academics, but arts, athletics and clubs. We want them to have access to Chromebooks, early global language offerings, and project-based learning, the most significant correlate to completing a four-year college degree.

Teaching is one of the hardest and most undervalued professions one can chose. We must provide our teachers with basic benefits, cost of living adjustments and manageable class sizes. We cannot achieve these goals without a new levy.

An earned income tax levy is how to do this in a sustainable fashion. It offsets inflation and shifts the burden from our overtaxed seniors, to the actual consumers of our school services. For our schools, our children, our teachers, our seniors, and our community, we strongly encourage our neighbors to consider supporting this levy.

Steve and Stacie Thaxton

Granville