Unofficial election results: Louisville school renewal levy defeated

LOUISVILLE ‒ Voters in the Louisville City School District have rejected the district’s request to renew an existing levy for another five years.

Unofficial election results show that 58% of the 2,724 Louisville City School District voters who cast a ballot by Tuesday opposed the district’s request for a five-year, 3.8-mill emergency levy renewal. The unofficial total stands at 1,137 to 1,587.

Issue 17 would have generated $1.83 million annually for the school system of roughly 2,700 students.

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The owner of a home valued at $100,000 would have continued paying $119 a year if Issue 17 had passed.

In many ways, the renewal levy seemed to be Louisville’s best chance to get a tax issue passed because the renewal levy was smaller than the tax issue voters passed five years ago.

When the issue was on the ballot in 2017 for renewal, it was a 5.9-mill levy. With the upcoming election, only 3.8 mills was needed to generate the same amount of revenue.

But a precinct-by-precinct breakdown of the unofficial results shows that Issue 17 failed in 11 of the district’s 16 precincts with no votes cast in two precincts.

Voters defeated the district’s request for a 3.8-mill continuous substitute levy to support school operations in November 2022.

The existing 5.9-mill levy expires in December 2023.

Reach Repository education writer Kelli Weir at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.

On Twitter: @kweirREP

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Louisville City Schools voters defeat Issue 17 renewal levy