Cincinnati Public Schools got a green light for the district's reform efforts Tuesday from voters who passed a 6-mill levy that will generate $35.8 million a year.

        The vote was 56 percent for the levy; 44 percent against.

        “We now have a community that is behind us and supports what we're doing, and that feels incredible,” said Rick Williams, president of the Cincinnati School Board.

        “We now have the funding to make it all work,” Mr. Williams said.

        Rick Beck, president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, said Tuesday night the victory “really lifts a cloud.”

        “Morale will be noticeably different,” he said. “This is voters recognizing that the schools are doing a better job, and that is important for teachers.”

        About 100 district employees and volunteers, including Mayor Charlie Luken and Councilwoman Alicia Reese, crowded around TV screens at pro-levy headquarters in Swifton Commons Mall. It was a party with cookies and soda punctuated by cheers.

        Cincinnati Superintendent Steven Adamowski said: “This was a crucial, crucial vote for us. In many respects our education reform efforts turn on this levy.

        “Somewhere out there tonight, there's a child doing his homework or ready to go to bed who is largely unaware of this struggle. I hope that this vote is a testament to the education we want to provide to all of our children.”

        Issue 33, an operating levy, is designed to keep the region's largest urban school district in the black for four years.

        The district plans to use the money to improve facilities, bolster neighborhood schools, reduce class size, and keep pace with inflation.

        With the levy's passage, the district avoids millions of dollars in cuts. It means $175 in new taxes for the owner of a home with a market value of $100,000.

        In total, the average homeowner already pays $944.84 for previous school levies already on the books.

        Failed levies in March and November 1999 forced the district to cut $774,000 from individual school budgets. That money — equal to $180 per student — will immediately be returned to schools now that the levy has passed.

        This levy campaign was one of the most expansive in recent memory, receiving support from a broad base, including all three political parties, the Baptist Ministers Conference and religious and civic groups.

        An expected large voter turnout because of the presidential election had levy supporters and volunteers who work with Cincinnatians Active to Support Education (CASE) canvassing the city with fliers, mailings, signs and community get-out-the-vote events. The largest voter turnout on record for a Cincinnati school levy was in 1984, the last time a presidential election and a Cincinnati school levy were on the same ballot.

        At the same time, the levy issue also found critics in Cincinnatians Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes (COAST).

        COAST ran radio ads critical of the levy, but on Thursday lost one of its largest contributors when the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky Apartment Owners Association withdrew the $12,400 it gave to COAST and threw its support behind the school district.

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