MOUNT VERNON – Mount Vernon City Schools passed a replacement levy in Tuesday’s special election that will add approximately $725,000 to the district’s permanent improvement fund each year.

1,350 district voters (68 percent) supported the levy, while 636 (32 percent) opposed it. According to the Knox County Board of Elections, just 9.7 percent of registered voters turned out for the special election.

This vote count will not become official until May 22, when the Board of Elections certifies special election results.

The school district’s 2.9-mill replacement levy will generate significantly more funding than its current 2-mill PI levy, which was established in 1977. Taxpayers will not see an increase in costs, however, because the district will simply redirect tax revenue from an expiring bond issue to the PI fund through this levy.

In December, Mount Vernon City Schools will have paid off its 25-year, $10.9 million bond to build Mount Vernon Middle School. By passing the district’s replacement PI levy this spring, the district will continue to collect the same amount from voters moving forward (residents are currently paying $3.99 per month, per $100,000 home for the middle school), although it will instead be used for permanent improvement projects. The district found that adding an extra 0.9 mills to the PI levy would allow taxpayers to continue to pay the same amount.

Superintendent Bill Seder said Tuesday night that he felt “incredibly grateful to the community for their continued support,” as this is the third levy Mount Vernon City Schools has passed since 2015.

“We live in a community that values education and we realize that that comes with a responsibility, too, and that’s to be good stewards of the resources that we’re given,” Seder said. “This money will allow us some flexibility as we begin to plan moving forward.”

Per state law, permanent improvement funds are only to be used for “certain capital improvement projects, maintenance and repairs of school property, and to purchase items with a lifespan of five years or more,” district treasurer Judy Forney noted in the MVCSD spring newsletter. PI funds are not to be used for operational costs such as salaries, benefits, supplies or utilities.

Seder said the school board will begin prioritizing school improvement projects in June. The board has spent the last year collecting feedback from the community on what needs fixed at certain facilities, in case additional permanent improvement funds were to become available.

Between the online “Thought Exchange,” facility grade cards, an Ohio Facilities Construction Commission study, and input the board received from school administrators and teachers when touring all seven of the district’s classroom buildings this year, Seder believes the board is prepared to begin making planning decisions.

“We’ve been doing a year-long master facility kind of a study,” Seder said. “We’ve got buildings that were built back in the early 1900s, so we have lots of needs. And the ability to have this additional resource will allow us to have flexibility in planning, and maybe addressing some of these needs earlier than we might have been able to do previously.”

Along with facility upgrades, Seder said the additional PI money will be used for transportation and safety needs. The district could potentially afford to replace buses earlier (it currently waits 10-12 years on average) and address schools that are not equipped with modern security features.

“We have a couple buildings where you still walk in and you walk into an empty vestibule, so to speak, and we need to try and address those things,” Seder said. “From a safety standpoint, technology will always continually need to be upgraded.”

From a timing standpoint, passing the replacement PI levy Tuesday was crucial for Mount Vernon City Schools. It will allow the district to maintain the year-to-year revenue it had been receiving from the middle school bond issue, and it will provide a seamless transition for taxpayers, who will simply continue paying the same amount they have paid for the last 25 years.

Failure to pass the levy Tuesday would have caused a gap in time between the expiration of the bond issue (December) and the issuing of a new replacement levy (next year), which would technically introduce an increase in taxes. This would have been much harder for the district to pass.

Seder estimated last fall that the district makes around $950,000 annually on its existing PI levy, which means the new levy will nearly double that amount. Dr. Margie Bennett, school board president, said the additional funds will make a “tremendous difference” in improving the educational experience for all Mount Vernon students moving forward. She thanked the community for making a “wise investment” in its public school system.

“I think, from a community standpoint, it should be one of those things we should all be very proud of,” Seder added. “You know, I think there’s a commitment to education, there’s a commitment to the community. We want our young people to have opportunities that we had, or were afforded, when we grew up.

“So I think it can certainly be a sense of pride, would be my hope. And hopefully we can make them proud of the students that graduate from Mount Vernon High School.”

Mount Vernon wasn’t the only local school district to pass a levy on Tuesday. North Fork and Northridge passed levies as well, albeit by a slimmer margin.

North Fork Local Schools renewed its one-percent earned income tax, gaining 58 percent of the vote. District residents have voted to renew the levy every three years since 2007, and the rate of one percent has not changed during that time.

This tax takes one percent of district residents’ earned income and puts it towards key operating expenses, such as instructional materials and curricular programs. It generates approximately 20 percent of the district’s operating budget, superintendent Scott Hartley said.

Meanwhile, Northridge Local Schools passed its 27-year earned income tax and bond issue with 54 percent of the vote. The 0.5-percent earned income tax, spanning 27 years, will generate money to update and maintain the middle school and high school. The 4.3-mill bond issue will generate $22 million over 27 years to fund the construction of a new elementary school.

The new elementary school will be built on the same campus as the middle school and high school, whereas it was previously located in Alexandria. The new bond issue will represent a $50-per-year increase for district taxpayers, as they previously paid $100 annually (per $100,000 home) to fund the high school (built in 1996), and now they will pay $150 annually to build the new elementary school.

The North Fork and Northridge school levies included votes from Knox and Licking counties, as both are crossover districts.