The levy will raise $6.6 million a year. It will cost taxpayers about $18 per $100,000 in value annually, according to the county auditor’s office.
The Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Services Board operates on federal, local and state funding but 57% of its revenue comes from two local tax levies.
MHARS 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.
“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 previously told the Journal-News. “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.”
Monroe levy request
The Monroe Local School replacement levy request of its existing 3.49-mill bond levy that is expiring passed with a tally of 63.94 percent for and 36.06 percent against, according to unofficial results.
While Monroe voters voted in favor of the 3.49-mill tax bond issue, the proposed tax hike comes with a delayed-timing detail, according to Superintendent Robert Buskirk.
A 3.5-mill bond issue that voters passed 23 years ago and funded the building of a new school for grades 2-12 on Yankee Road is set to be paid off in 2029 and it will be replaced by the lower bond issue, he said.
Monroe’s proposed 3.49-mill rate translates to $122 annually per $100,000 home, or slightly less than the current 3.50-mills, according to the district.
The district has seen its student population nearly double since 2004 with no end in sight as residential numbers continue to climb, city and school officials have said.
When the school on Yankee opened during the 2004-2005 year, the district had 1,500 students, Buskirk said. In the last 20 years, enrollment has nearly doubled to 2,900, according to the latest numbers from May 2024, he said.
Main campus, which houses grades 2-12, enrollment is already at 130% above its designed capacity, Buskirk said, and this bond issue for a new building — preliminarily planned, pending OFCC approval, for the southeast corner of the campus now used for athletic practice fields — is a cost-effective solution.
The need for a new high school, projected to be built on the 186 acres on Yankee Road, is “real and will not go away,” Buskirk said.
Library levies
The MidPointe Library’s request for an additional 1.25 mill levy was defeated by voters with 43.67 percent for and 56.33 percent against, according to unofficial final results.
The MidPointe Library, with locations in Middletown, Monroe, Trenton and Liberty and West Chester townships, asked voters to pass Issue 11, a 1.25-mill levy that would replace a .75-mill levy that passed in 2010 and will expire in 2025, said Executive Director Travis Bautz.
The annual cost of this levy would have been $43.75 per $100,000 of property value, he said.
Bautz said the 1.25-mill replacement levy was “more in line with the operational needs” of the library system that has earmarked $3 million for improvements the next five years.
The Lane Library’s .75-mill renewal levy request passed with 56.62 percent for and 43.38 percent against, according to unofficial results. The libray system has locations in Fairfield, Hamilton and Oxford,
New Miami results
The New Miami Streets Levy failed by less than one percent with 49.93 percent for and 50.07 percent for and 49.75 percent against. The village’s fire levy passed with the vote of 57.12 percent for and 42.88 percent against, according to unofficial, final results.
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