HAMILTON — Butler County residents will see two countywide tax initiatives on the Nov. 6 ballot — a sales tax increase for expanding public transportation and a replacement levy for maintaining services to the elderly.

        The Butler County Regional Transit Authority placed a proposed five-year, quarter-cent sales tax increase on the ballot to improve public transportation.

        The sales tax proposal would produce $8 million a year. It would pay for a comprehensive transit program that would include routes, Dial-A-Ride service and park-and-ride sites.

        After voters rejected this tax initiative by a 55 percent—45 percent vote in May, the transit authority eliminated the Dial-A-Ride program, which provided on-demand curb-to-curb service any time for $2 per ride.

        If the sales tax increase is rejected, all fixed routes will be eliminated by Jan. 1 and the transit authority will cease to exist by July 1, said Amy Terango, general manager of the transit authority.

        “There's just no more funding,” Ms. Terango said. “We've already seen a 50 percent cut in state funding. Local communities are seeing a financial crunch. It leaves us with very few options.”

        Helen Johnson, 77, of St. Clair Township, supports the transit sales tax increase.

        “It's good for the elderly and for a lot of other people who don't have their own transportation,” she said.

        But Vic Advani, 56, of Liberty Township, said he will vote against the sales tax increase. He said the Butler County transit system doesn't serve enough people to justify $8 million a year in tax revenue.

        “I don't think it's that good of a service yet for the money they want,” Mr. Advani said. “It”s still very inconvenient for people in the suburbs to use the system.”

        The 1.3-mill levy for services for the elderly would replace a 1-mill levy that expires Dec. 31. The replacement levy would raise the property taxes of the owner of a $100,000 home by $15.23 a year.

        This levy pays for such services as home-delivered meals, house-cleaning, grooming and bathing that allow senior citizens to remain in their homes. Clients pay for these services on a sliding fee scale based on income.

        The levy would generate $7.9 million a year. The Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio, which runs Butler County's Elderly Services Program, could use that money to attract more than $1 million in federal and state funds, said Robert Logan, executive director of the agency.

        That would be enough to maintain the elderly services for the 2,000 Butler County residents who now receive them, he said.

        If the levy fails, about 1,800 of those people would lose the services, Mr. Logan said.

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