“Our whole mission is we want people to go to our website, pull up their property, see their own property on that levy calculator and see exactly what they’re voting on and how it’s going to impact them financially,” Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix told the Journal-News. “We are not calling out any particular levy or bond issue, I just think people need to make an informed decision and that is the sure fire way to make that happen.”
The only countywide ask is a .5-mill additional 5-year operating levy for the Butler County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services Board. The two library systems are on the ballot along with two school districts and six municipal levies.
To find the estimated cost — they are based on 2024 valuations and subject to change — for the levies taxpayers should go to the property search section on the auditor’s website at, type in their name or address and they’ll find the levy calculator at the top of the profile section.
Everyone will be paying more money to the MHARS Board if the measure is approved. The agency operates on federal, local and state funding but 57% of their revenue comes from two local tax levies. Executive Director Scott Rasmus said this is a new levy, but it will replace the existing .5-mill, 10-year levy that first passed in 1985 and was last renewed in 2014. If successful they will retire the old funding source that expires this year. That levy costs taxpayers $5 per $100,000 and collects about $2.4 million. The new levy would cost $17.50 per $100,000 and collect about $6.6 million.
“What we’re looking at really here is the delta, the new mills versus the old mills, which is $13 per $100,000 home per year,” Rasmus told the Journal-News previously. “That’s about a dollar per month so what I can say is we’re only going for what we need. We want to utilize this to get out at least five years… We’re very good stewards of the taxpayers money.”
The two library systems are hoping voters will approve continuing levies, which eliminates the need to go back to the voters every five years as they have been doing. The MidPointe Library — with locations in Middletown, Monroe, Trenton and Liberty and West Chester townships — is asking for an additional 1.25-mill levy that would increase taxes from $14.63 to $43.75 per $100,000 of property value.
The Lane Libraries, with locations in Fairfield, Hamilton and Oxford, are looking for a .75-mill renewal that won’t raise taxes.
The Monroe Local School District wants to replace an existing 3.49-mill bond levy that is expiring. The new one will cost the same at $122.15 per $100,000. Princeton Schools are asking for a new 5-mill operating levy that would cost $175 per $100,000.
New Miami is asking for two additional levies, one for fire and the other for streets with a combined new money total of $315 per $100,000 in value. A successful fire levy will cost $210 per $100,000 and streets levy $105. Lemon Twp. and Oxford have fire levies up for approval and they would cost $54.07 and $91 more respectively.
While 11 levies on one ballot sounds high, it’s not a record in recent years. Butler County Board of Elections Director Nicole Unzicker said there were 17 levy questions on the November 2020 ballot. Passing levies has been a hot topic over the past 18 months as local and state leaders have been grappling with enormous property tax hikes after the triennial property re-evaluation last year. Nix said voters in the county have approved 83 tax levies since 2008
Unzicker said the auditor’s levy calculator plus the sample ballots available on the BOE website will be valuable tools for voters this November. As of Tuesday 10,892 voters had requested mail-in ballots and early voting begins Oct. 8. Deputy BOE Director Eric Corbin said predicting turnout is tricky.
“It’s super hard to estimate but historically speaking in Butler County for presidential elections it’s been around 72%,” Corbin said. “At this point I think that’s a safe estimate.”
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