Turner makes pitch for Vantage Career Center levy

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

Voters in much, but not quite all of Van Wert County, must decide on Vantage Career Center’s request for a continuing 0.7 mill property tax renewal for permanent improvements.

The issue is one of 14 issues on the local November 4 ballot.

Appearing at Wednesday night’s Van Wert Chamber of Commerce’s “Meet the Candidates” event, Superintendent Rick Turner said the PI levy for the  Van Wert-based school has been on the ballot six times since 1996 and has been approved each time. He said the school is now asking voters to switch it to a continuous levy and he noted by law, the money cannot go to personnel or salaries, but is strictly earmarked for equipment and buildings and grounds.

“In a career center those needs are never going to go away, especially in this day and age where technology is changing and it’s very important for us to stay current,” Turner explained. “We’re going to have to continue to make sure that our equipment and our grounds are up to date and first class.”

He also lauded the low cost of the levy, roughly $8 per year for every $100,000 of property valuation and he said the demand for Vantage’s has never been higher.

“With baby boomers exiting the workforce and jobs growing more technical all the time, it’s more and more important every day that we have technical skills training,” Turner stated. “We are the fastest growing career center in the State of Ohio. Among 49 career centers, we’ve grown 44 percent from 2020-2025. We’ve had a huge influx of students and we’ve had waiting lists the last couple of years and that speaks to the quality of our staff, of our board of education and to our community.”

“I’m very proud of who we are and what we do,” he added. “We train licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, firefighters, EMTs, police officers – essential workers that protect the community, and those are just a few of the in-demand occupations that we train for.”

In addition to the majority of voters in Van Wert County, voters in Allen, Auglaize, Mercer, Paulding and Putnam counties will also decide on the issue for the career center, which is in its 50th year of operation. Vantage serves students from 13 schools in those counties – Antwerp, Continental, Crestview, Delphos Jefferson, Delphos St. John’s, Fort Jennings, Kalida, Lincolnview, Ottoville, Parkway, Paulding, Van Wert and Wayne Trace.