Cincinnati Public Schools officials say the district will avoid fiscal caution and deficit spending over the next five years after voters approved its five-year, 7-mill property tax on Nov. 3, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The levy, Issue 4, passed with about 60 percent of the vote and is expected to bring in $66 million a year — the district’s first new money in 10 years, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. It will cost property owners $245 a year for every $100,000 of market value, and collections begin in January.
The planning matters because of the hole the district was facing. The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce had projected a $44.5 million deficit by fiscal year 2029 without additional revenue, and CPS had closed a $58 million budget gap for this school year through staffing reductions, furlough days and other cuts, according to the Enquirer and district reporting by WKRC.
Superintendent Shauna Murphy thanked the community after the vote. “Cincinnati, thank you. Tonight, you voted for the future of our students and the city they will help shape,” Murphy said in a statement reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer. “With the passage of Issue 4, we can protect the progress our schools are making.”
Murphy also cautioned that the new money will not immediately restore what has already been cut, the Enquirer reported. The district eliminated more than 100 positions and imposed five furlough days to balance this year’s budget, and leaders say the levy revenue is meant first to stabilize the five-year outlook and keep current programs in place.
Cincinnati Public was the region’s clearest school-tax winner on a night when most Southwest Ohio measures failed: only three of the levies across Hamilton, Butler, Clermont and Warren counties passed, and none of the income tax proposals succeeded, WXIX reported. District leaders say that contrast is exactly why the five-year forecast — the document the state watches for fiscal caution — is now being rebuilt around the levy’s revenue rather than around another round of reductions.
What happens next: as the district updates its budget, officials say they will explain how the revenue supports schools and share the decisions that affect individual buildings and services, the Enquirer reported — with the new collections starting in January and the first full year of levy money shaping the 2027-28 spending plan.