BY SUE KIESEWETTER
Enquirer Contributor
Some Butler County residents will head to the polls Tuesday.
Voters in the Edgewood City Schools will decide a 3.94-mill bond issue. Reily Township trustees have put a five-year, 3.5-mill fire levy on the ballot to pay for emergency medical services.
Edgewood would use the $18.9 million that the measure would generate for an addition to double the size of Babeck Elementary School, add 78,900 square feet to Edgewood High School, build a connector between Trenton and Bloomfield elementary schools, upgrade the gymnasium at Trenton Elementary and renovate classrooms.
"This bond issue will allow us to improve our facilities across the board," said Tom York, Edgewood's assistant superintendent."
Tuesday's ballot will be the fourth in the past two years in which voters have been asked to approve a bond issue to add classrooms. Enrollment is expected to increase by 100 to 150 pupils each year. If the bond issue is approved, taxes on a house with a market value of $100,000 would increase by about $120 annually.
In Reily Township, the fire levy is expected to raise about $118,000 each of the next five years. It would be used to pay for life squad and fire department expenses, Trustee David Hysell said.
The township began making its own emergency medical runs last month following the April demise of the private Hanover Life Squad Inc., which donated a life squad vehicle to the township. While the township recruited volunteers to make the runs, Oxford, Morgan Township and Millville departments covered calls in Reily Township on an interim basis, Mr. Hysell said.
If the levy is approved, taxes on a house with a market value of $100,000 would increase by about $110 annually, the Butler County auditor's office said.
Trustees have already voted to ask the auditor's office to cease collections on a 1.5-mill levy that funds the fire department if Tuesday's issue passes. The new levy, if approved, would provide money for both fire and life squad calls.
"We can't continue to fund emergency medical services through the general fund," Mr. Hysell said.
