At Thursday’s Montgomery County Board of Elections meeting, election officials confirmed that there are 34 valid ballots remaining to be counted.
“We had 49 outstanding absentee-mail ballots, of which 12 were returned” (within the legal window), Board of Elections Director Jeff Rezabek said. “We had 29 provisional ballots and 22 of them were accepted as good.”
The only way the school levy would be rejected is if 22 or more of the 34 remaining ballots are “no” votes.
“I do not know the numbers. We will find out that number next Wednesday at the final certification meeting,” Rezabek said.
Regardless of the breakdown of those 34 votes, the race is almost certainly headed for a recount five days after the May 21 certification. In Ohio, any race where the final margin is less than 0.5% gets a recount.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The Huber Heights school levy was a permanent, 6.9-mill property tax request. If passed, it would raise $7.8 million per year for day-to-day operating expenses like salaries, benefits, supplies, utilities and more. It would cost a homeowner $241.50 per $100,000 in appraised property value.
There was community debate before the election on why the district would seek a permanent levy rather than five years, and at the highest millage rate of any new school levy in the region this cycle.
At the start of this school year, Huber Heights had one of the most robust cash balances in the area, at 84% of a year’s spending, and were projected to finish in the black again in 2024-25. The district’s leaders said the high balance was a response to financial difficulties from the early 2010s, and pointed to predictions of deficit spending starting next school year.
The school board had already identified $7.3 million in cuts to make if the levy does not pass, including more than 20 teaching positions, raising pay-to-play fees to $750 per student, increasing preschool tuition and cutting multiple principals.
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