Middletown levy is still up in the air

Tax issues failed in some
districts in Northeast Ohio.

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) — The fate of a levy to fund activities at Middletown City Schools hangs on 285 provisional ballots.

Unofficial results from Tuesday’s election on a combined $4 million renewal and $1.5 million additional tax levy showed the proposal being rejected by 186 votes. However, provisional votes will not be counted until Aug. 21, one week before school starts.

A provisional ballot is cast but not immediately counted when a voter’s residence or eligibility cannot be verified at the polling place. It is counted later if a check by officials shows the voter meets all requirements.

The unofficial vote count shows the levy being defeated by 2 percentage points, 4,489-4,303, according to the Butler and Warren county boards of elections.

Looking ahead

If the proposal is rejected, officials are prepared to institute a pay-to-participate system, which would cost high school athletes $900 per sport. Chess club and academic quiz team members would pay $350, and other extracurricular activities, such as National Honor Society, student government and drama, would cost $90.

Voters in the Milton-Union school district, north of Dayton, approved renewal of a five-year, 17-mill levy that generates about $1.7 million a year for operations. Similar proposals failed in November and February.

Voters in nearby Covington rejected a 2.5-mill permanent improvement levy that Superintendent Randy Earl said was needed to buy buses, textbooks and computers, “things that are wearing out, but aren’t in our current budget.”

In southeast Ohio, the Wolf Creek school levy that failed by eight votes in May passed 512-467 on Tuesday. The 6.41-mill levy, the first operating levy passed in the district in 17 years, will generate $781,927 a year for five years.

Five times defeated

Voters in the Springfield Local School District in Summit County defeated an operating levy for the fifth time since May 2006. This one would have generated about $3.6 million a year for five years.

“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” said William Stauffer, Springfield’s new superintendent. “It was worse than what we were hoping for.”

It will be presented to voters again in November.

In Northeast Ohio, tax issues also failed in Strongsville, Buckeye, Coventry and Streetsboro. Strongsville’s 6.5-mill levy lost by just 73 votes out of 9,277 cast, despite warnings from officials that, without the money, busing for all high school students and students living within two miles of their schools would be cut.

Voters in the Buckeye Valley School District in Delaware County and Marysville Schools in Union County also defeated school tax issues.