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Ballot issues to continue funding for the Bellefontaine City Schools and Logan County’s roads and bridges will not change the current location taxation landscape.
Each of the school levies are renewals which means the impact on property owners will not change. The county’s 1⁄2-percent sales tax has been in effect since 1997, although it has been modified to help fund more than just roads and bridges, members of the Bellefontaine Rotary Club learned Monday.
Bellefontaine City Schools Superintendent Brad Hall and Logan County Engineer Scott Coleman spoke about the ballot issues during the luncheon meeting.
Mr. Hall said both of the school issues are five-year levies. One is a 6.05-mill operating levy that was first passed in 1986. It generates $1.5 million annually.
Back then, a school bus cost just $35,000. Now, it takes $96,000 to replace a bus.
Beginning school teacher salaries were $14,700 a year, but that has grown to $33,600. Text books were $25.95 in 1986; now the books are $117.22 a piece.
The second levy is an emergency levy that generates $1.185 million a year. It was first passed in 2007.
Mr. Hall noted the emergency tag causes some people concern. But to get rid of the tag would require allowing the current levy to expire and passing a new operating levy.
“It’s been our observations that new levies haven’t been successful in recent years,” he said.
Read complete story in Tuesday’s Examiner.
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