When Toledo Public Schools officials announced its levy campaign this week, its employees' union leaders were standing right behind them.

Leaders of TPS' three labor unions are at the helm of the district's campaign to persuade voters to approve a 6.9-mill continuing levy being placed on the November election ballot.

A continuing levy is one that, if approved, is permanent and would never require another vote to be collected.

Kevin Dalton, Toledo Federation of Teachers president, has joined Jim Gault, chief academic officer, for the school district, as co-chairmen of the campaign committee.

Mr. Gault called historic the level of public collaboration by union leaders with an official TPS levy campaign, saying it is a symbol both of the high stakes for the school district in this levy request and of the increasingly positive working relationships between labor leaders and administrators.

"We've come to the realization that we can get more done working together than we can working apart," Mr. Gault said.

The tenor of relations between labor and management in TPS has been in recent months, at least publicly, more amicable than often seen in Toledo.

Mr. Gault said volunteer hours for the levy campaign are likely to be in the thousands, and many of those probably will be teachers.

The slogan pushed by boosters during the campaign kickoff, "TPS Proud," came from TFT, an effort to counteract a state proposal to rate school systems on an A through F grading scale that Mr. Dalton said unfairly labeled all Toledo Public School students as failures.

"How does it make them feel?" he said of the rating. "We have to recognize those kids [that succeed]."

The message levy supporters will push seems to be focused on the economic impact of public schools and that a strong school system is needed to move the city forward.

"If we have a strong school system, we have a strong community," Mr. Dalton said.

It will be a long road to the November election for those trying to convince voters, who have not approved new levy money for the Toledo school district's general fund since 2000.

The campaign appears to be aimed at voters who do not have children.

The new levy would add about $18.5 million a year to district coffers, costing the property owner of a home valued at $60,000 an increase of about $127 in property taxes.

The only way not to collect a continuing levy, once it is passed, is for voters to approve a repeal of the levy at the ballot box.

By contrast, a temporary tax is subject to voter approval if it is to continue past its expiration.

School district projections show its budget balanced through next fiscal year, in large part because of concessions by labor unions last year that included 2.5 percent wage cuts, a freeze to automatic raises, and increased health insurance contributions.

Levy supporters could face skeptical voters who suspect a levy's successful passage would go directly to soften those concessions, especially with such strong labor support for the campaign. Mr. Dalton and Mr. Gault emphasized that each unions' contract runs through next year, and there are no wage reopeners.

"There has been no commitment to our labor unions or any of our employees as far as wages or anything like that," Mr. Gault said.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at: nrosenkrans@theblade.com or 419-724-6086.

First Published May 19, 2012, 4:00 a.m.