It appears the Monroe Local Schools 7.05-million dollar emergency operating tax levy will pass after 6,157 votes have already been counted.

The initiative is firmly in favor of passing with each of the nine voting precincts partially tabulated and all of the absentee votes counted.

The school district is currently in state of fiscal emergency, under control by the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission, and is borrowing $2.2 million from the state.

Passage of the levy gives the commission the money it needs to get the district out of financial difficulty according to interim superintendent Phil Cagwin.

After calculating an operating deficit of $2.2 million and a bond retirement debt of $3.1 million in May, Monroe Schools was placed in in fiscal emergency and fell under state control. With the passage of Issue 16, the district will have enough money to continue operations and end state control.

The levy will generate $2.5 million per year over the next 5 years for the Monroe School District. The tax increase, for example, will cause the owner of a $100,000 home to pay an extra $215.91 in taxes annually, according to the Butler County Auditor’s Office.

Without the levy’s passage, the Financial Planning and Supervision Commission hinted at sending the districted into state minimum standards. That would have meant all extra-curricular activities and athletics would be cut, as well as busing and many elective courses, for the school that was recently rated “excellent with distinction.”

Superintendent Cagwin reminds the city this “wouldn’t have happened without the members of the Monroe Levy Committee. Those parents put so much into the passage of this issue; I don’t believe there is any possible way the issue would have passed without their efforts.”

Source: Middletown Journal