WCHCS levy ‘too close to call’

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The Washington Court House City School District’s 1 percent income tax was too close to call Tuesday evening at the general election, according to the Fayette County Board of Elections, due to the number of provisional ballots that still need to be counted.

According to unofficial results, the seven-year levy for operating expenses was behind on Tuesday evening 1,225 votes (50.56 percent) against the levy to 1,198 votes (49.44 percent) for the levy. With a difference of only 27 votes, the unofficial results were too close to call due to 33 provisional ballots within the city that will not be counted until Nov. 18 and will not be certified until Nov. 19.

According to wikipedia.org, in an election a provisional ballot is used to record a vote when there are questions about a given voter’s eligibility that must be resolved before the vote can count. Therefore, some of the 33 provisional ballots may be cast out depending on the resolution of such issues.

“I do want to thank those who took time to support the levy,” Washington Court House City Schools Superintendent Tom Bailey said. “We are still holding out that glimmer of hope, but we would need about 30 of those votes to pass the levy. That being said we will have two discussions with the board (of education) under the assumption that it may not pass. The first is what we will have to cut for the 2020-21 school year. The second discussions is if the board wants to try again with the levy. Next year being a presidential election year, we do need to decide this quickly as we are on a time crunch to meet deadlines.”

According to Bailey as previously reported, this levy would not pay for new construction at the football field, auditorium or anywhere within the district, but would go towards maintaining the district as it currently is progressing. That includes paying for the operational items like water, heat, electricity and more, such as staff salaries and supplies.

“If we do not pass the levy we are looking at having to cut 1/23rd of our budget and it doesn’t stop there unfortunately, as the next year, due to inflation, we would need to continue to make deeper cuts to extra- and co-curricular activities as well as personnel,” Bailey said recently. “We don’t have a lot of stuff to get rid of, I mean we could cut back on transportation as well, but regardless, the integrity of the academic program needs to be maintained and student needs are the priority, so if it comes to it we would analyze every aspect of the district to see where cuts could be made.”

Stay with the Record-Herald for the official results later this month.

Reach Martin Graham at (740) 313-0351 or on Twitter @MartiTheNewsGuy.

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Income tax behind by 27 votes, 33 provisional ballots remain

By Martin Graham

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