LEBANON — Little Miami Schools' attempt for a 0.75 percent districtwide income tax failed Tuesday.

        The vote was 5,643 against the tax to 2,096 in favor of the tax in official final results.

        The school district tried to buck the traditional taxing system by asking for an income tax instead of a property tax levy to pay for the schools' operating costs. Superintendent Ralph Shell had fielded numerous calls from voters when he sent out letters to the community detailing the income tax proposal.

        Tuesday night the superintendent said, “The board of education will have a great deal of discussion and decide what to do.”

        The income tax would have generated an estimated $2.3 million a year.

        Mr. Shell had touted the income tax as an inflation-proof way to pay for schools.

        Property tax levies do not rise with inflation, Mr. Shell said, leaving school officials to juggle increasing operating costs every year against the same property tax revenue as the first year a levy was passed.

        For example, Little Miami's last emergency operating levy was renewed in 1997 for $930,000 annually. Year in and year out, or until a new levy is passed, that levy can generate only the same amount in local taxes — $930,000.

        If the income tax proposal had passed, the school board had pledged to reduce by half the collection of that $930,000 emergency operating levy in that levy's final year, and to not ask for re newal of the levy after it expires in December 2002.

        Revenue that would not have been taxed under the income tax proposal would have included: Social Security benefits; disability and survivor's benefits; railroad and retirement benefits; welfare benefits; child support; property received as a gift, bequest or inheritance; and workers' compensation.

        The income tax would not have applied to people who work in the district but live elsewhere. But it would have applied to renters, unlike property tax levies.

        Failure of the tax means the school board will ask for a renewal of the operating levy in 2002 as well as a levy increase, Mr. Shell has said. Or the board might try again for an income tax, he said.

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