No the school board retained the power to increase the school tax levy. It is an independent power granted to them, independent from the city budget. It just didn’t do it for many many years until the state announced it was withdrawing . Probably since they were allied with the mayor at that time and didn’t want to increase taxes. Think the days of the dishonorable sudhan thomas. They have an allowable increase of a few percent per year (don’t remember the number). When the state announced their cuts few years ago I read up a lot on civic JC’s blog. They only started doing that when it became a big commotion. So instead of being proactive, they fell behind and had a much larger deficit than they would have.