BY MARK SKERTIC
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The overwhelming rejection of a plan to raise the sales tax to pay for education reform doesn't mean voters won't spend more on schools. While 80 percent of Ohio voters rejected the Issue 2 sales tax plan, most local school tax issues passed.
Statewide, 56 percent of local tax issues statewide passed Tuesday. Despite the presence of Issue 2 on the ballot, the rate was in line with the state average. Over the past five years, local school issues have passed, on average, 57 percent of the time.
"There's no way you can say a vote against Issue 2 was a vote against schools," said Brewster Rhoads, a Cincinnati-area political consultant who has run several successful school campaigns.
"People are pretty discriminating. They are more likely to support a tax when they can see, touch, feel and oversee where the money's going."
In the four Southwest Ohio counties, voters approved five school tax issues and defeated six. The local tax issues were approved even in counties where the sales-tax plan was overwhelmingly opposed. In Warren County, for example, three out of every four voters opposed Issue 2, which would have raised the state sales tax a penny on the dollar. Springboro schools lost a bid for a new property tax for operations, but voters were willing to pass a three-year renewal of an existing tax.
Local control over tax money and knowing how it's spent is essential to passing a school tax, said Springboro Superintendent Gary Meier. "People are willing to pay more for education," he said. "It's a matter of finding the most palatable way of paying for that education and, more importantly, making sure they're getting a good value for that dollar."
