If approved, the levy will generate about $6.4 million per year and last five years, said Vandalia-Butler Treasurer Eric Beavers. For a person with $50,000 in annual taxable income, the levy would cost $500 a year.
Vandalia Superintendent Rob O’Leary said the funds would pay for the cost of daily operations, and in all local school districts, the No. 1 expense is employee salary and benefits. O’Leary said the levy would help fund the school safety officer program, middle school and high school electives and elementary classes like art and music.
O’Leary said the district has never previously used an income tax, though it’s been discussed. But this option allows flexibility in payment with inflation and job loss and doesn’t impact most senior citizens in the community, who may have trouble affording the property tax increases.
The district’s last operating levy that increased tax rates was 10 years ago. That 6.99-mill levy narrowly passed in 2013 after being rejected twice the previous year.
The Ohio School Boards Association said school income tax requests were down last year, with 28, compared to 53 in the last pre-pandemic year of 2019.
