ALBANY, Ohio — A proposed 0.75% tax levy to benefit the Alexander Local School District failed Tuesday night by 21 votes, according to unofficial election night results from the Athens, Meigs and Vinton county election boards. The levy would have generated an estimated $1 million for local schools over the next five years.
While the majority of voters in Athens County approved the levy, it failed in Vinton and Meigs counties. Overall, 2,428 people rejected the levy while 2,407 voters supported it, according to unofficial election night results from the three election boards.
The school district has faced an uphill battle through many attempts to fund the district via levies. Voters previously rejected attempts to renew a 1% levy for the school in 2023 and 2024. That levy first passed in 2019 following multiple failures. This election cycle, the district tried to entice voters to pass a new levy by reducing it by a quarter of a percentage point. But it did not work in all three counties.
William Hampton, the district’s superintendent since 2022, told the Independent in September that funding has remained stagnant for decades and that the district faces a $1.5 million budget deficit. At that time, he said he was unsure if the levy would pass and noted that the district would make “some significant reductions” if the tax measure failed.
“We’re doing everything we can to be efficient and to be good stewards of the community’s money,” Hampton said in September.
