YOUNGSTOWN — The city board of education has adopted a resolution to place a four-year, 9.51-mill renewal levy on the Nov. 7 general election ballot.

The measure, approved in 2020, would generate $5,291,510 annually for general operating expenses in the district and cost the owner of a $100,000 home $333 per year, district Treasurer Bryan Schiraldi said after Tuesday’s regular board meeting at Choffin Career and Technical Center.

The levy for emergency requirements was to have been on the May 2 primary election ballot but was rescinded because too few issues from the city’s seven wards were to accompany it on the ballot, he explained.

In February, the Mahoning County Board of Elections told Schiraldi that because of the scant number of issues from the wards, the district would have to pay the cost of a citywide vote, which he estimated at the time would be approximately $80,000.

Consequently, the decision was made to introduce it on the Nov. 7 ballot instead, the treasurer said previously. The levy expires in December, with the final collection in 2024.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Bill Williams, chief consultant with Youngstown-based Imaging Results, outlined a proposal to move large volumes of district documents to his company’s 35-station storage and processing facility on Meridian Road on the West Side, a move he said would make the documents more secure and record requests more efficient.

“We store over 1 million records for the city of Youngstown,” Williams said.

Many of the documents, some of which are more than 100 years old, are stored in boxes — many of which have degraded — at the former Mary Haddow Elementary School on Oak Street Extension on the East Side, which closed in 2008, as well as in a building on the North Side. The school is used mainly as a storage site, but is not secure, Williams told the board and an audience of many Youngstown Education Association members.

In addition, Imaging Results would be able to first re-inventory the materials, then notify the school board of its findings. It’s likely that 3,000 to 4,000 new boxes would need to be stored before making a decision on which documents can be scanned and indexed, or gotten rid of and kept, he explained.

Because of the massive volume of material, the process of securing, digitizing and scanning the information likely would create additional jobs, Williams said. He noted that a link can be added to the district’s website to make requests more seamless.

Implementing a newer, more secure system also can reduce the amount of paper used for school records and cut down on delays in receiving document requests. The process is best done during the summer, when school is not in session and no new records are being generated, he continued.

In addition, Imaging Results deals with records from many city entities that include Eastern Gateway Community College, the Youngstown Fire Department and Youngstown Parks & Recreation, to name a few, Williams continued.

Robert Kearns, the district’s executive director of operations, said he hopes to meet with Williams next week about his proposal while also considering other bids for the work.

In other action, the board unanimously approved a move to transfer some students at Kirkmere Elementary School on the West Side to nearby Volney Elementary to help alleviate overcrowding at Kirkmere.

The plan, which will be implemented for the 2023-24 school year, would affect 48 to 58 students in kindergarten through grade five, Kearns noted. Specifically, it would not make any significant interruptions to the students’ transportation, but would improve Kirkmere’s student-teacher ratio, he added.

Also at the meeting, the board agreed to withhold the name of the district’s next superintendent because salary considerations have yet to be negotiated and agreed upon. It is hoped the process will be wrapped up by late July, board President Tiffany Patterson said.

Jeremy J. Batchelor, who had served as principal of East High School and the district’s deputy superintendent of teaching, learning and leadership, is interim superintendent.