SPRINGBORO SCHOOLS TO SEEK NEW LEVY IN FALL

Effort designed to collect more revenue as tax base grows.

Voters in the Springboro school district should be casting ballots on a substitute levy in the November election.

The levy would substitute for an existing levy that generates slightly more than $7.9 million annually for the district.

A second resolution must be approved by August to put the issue on the ballot.

“We’re ahead of the game,” Treasurer Terrah Floyd said as the board approved the first resolution without comment last Thursday.

Under the substitute levy, the district would collect more tax revenue as new homes and buildings are constructed and the tax base grows. But the bills of existing taxpayers should stay the same, barring a reappraisal or change by the county board of tax review.

At least one other area district, the Beavercreek City Schools, is expected to vote on continuing substitute levy in the Nov. 7 election.

With a substitute levy, taxpayers still benefit from 12.5 percent in credits, 10 percent for property owners, 2.5 percent if owner-occupied. This rollback is no longer attached to new levies.

Last month, Springboro board members indicated they were in support of asking voters to approve a continuing substitute levy after a discussion with Floyd and Superintendent Dan Schroer.

“It may or may not be a tough sell,” Schroer said during the April 27 discussion.

The vote on the second resolution needed to place the issue on the ballot could come as early as May 24.

If the substitute levy fails to win voter support in November, the district still has a year to win approval of a replacement levy.

In November 2013, Springboro

voters approved the most recent 8.78-mill five-year, renewal. It is currently levied at 8.38 mills due to the increased property valu

ation in the district since passage.

If voters passed the con- tinuing substitute levy, the tax would be in place in perpetuity, barring a rollback.

Prior to the November 2013 election, district voters rejected five consecutive levies for additional operating money.

Passage of a continuing substitute levy would delay

the need for and reduce the amount school officials eventually seek in new operating funds, officials in Springboro and Beaver- creek said.

The existing levy cov- ers roughly 18 percent of

the district’s annual operating budget, and expires at the end of 2018.

Failure to at least renew the existing levy would cost the district more than $20 million by 2021, according to Floyd.