Yes for Sycamore

Community Leadership for A Strong Sycamore (CLASS) is a volunteer group that supports voter initiatives — like school levies — for Sycamore Community Schools.

It's a 6.95-mill continuing levy on the November 3, 2026 ballot — 5.00 mills for operating costs and 1.95 mills for permanent improvements (maintaining existing buildings, buses, and technology). For a homeowner that's about $243 per year for every $100,000 of your home's market total value. Check your own number on the cost calculator.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026 (polls open 6:30 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.), but you don't have to wait: early in-person voting and no-excuse vote-by-mail both begin Tuesday, October 6, 2026. Make sure you're registered (or update your address) by Monday, October 5, 2026 — it takes two minutes at voteohio.gov. Polling places, mail-ballot requests, and early-voting hours are all at the Hamilton County Board of Elections.

Most Sycamore voters don't have a student enrolled right now, and the case doesn't depend on it. Strong schools are consistently one of the biggest drivers of local home values — the district's reputation is priced into every house in the district, whether or not your kids use it. The levy costs about $243 a year per $100,000 of home value; a district slipping into deficits and cuts puts far more than that at stake for every homeowner. And parts of the schools themselves — tracks, fields, events, theaters — are available for the whole community to use.

That was a different kind of measure. In 2019 voters approved a $127.5 million bond issue to rebuild Sycamore Junior High and E.H. Greene and expand Symmes — bond money is legally restricted to construction and cannot pay salaries, utilities, or day-to-day operations. This 6.95-mill measure is an operating and permanent-improvement levy that funds the separate day-to-day budget. See Levy Details for the bond-vs-operating distinction.

Property tax is billed to owners, so renters don't pay it directly; landlords factor taxes into rent over time along with everything else. But renters vote on this levy just like homeowners, use the same schools, and benefit from the same community strength. If you live inside the district and you're registered, your vote counts exactly the same.

We deliver! Check "I'd like a sign in my yard" on the Get involved form, give us your address, and a volunteer will drop one off.

Sign up on our Get involved page. We always need people for door-to-door, hosting yard signs, and talking to their neighbors.

Ohio school districts rely on local property tax levies to fund day-to-day operations — teacher salaries, classroom furniture and technology, transportation, and building maintenance — because 85% of our school funding is from local taxpayers - the state funding only covers 15% of our costs.

Sycamore runs on about $111 million a year, and it's funded mostly by local property taxpayers — roughly 85% local and only about 15% state, with very little federal money. Compared with many Ohio districts, Sycamore gets a relatively low share of state funding, so local levies carry the load. More than 82 cents of every dollar pays the teachers and staff who educate our kids. See how the district is funded for the full breakdown and sources.

Yes. This is the first request for new operating money since 2016 — a full decade. After that levy the district built reserves up and then stretched them for years rather than spending quickly; three long-standing debts finish being paid off in 2026 (about $866,000 a year saved starting 2027); and the district's own model projects this levy is sized to last roughly another five years. See what the district has already done with your money.

That's the figure the district's own five-year forecast says it needs — not a round number and not a maximum. Without new revenue, that public forecast shows cash reserves dropping below the board's 25% policy floor by FY27 and going negative by FY30. 6.95 mills is sized to restore roughly five years of stability — see the math behind this levy.

A continuing levy has no expiration, which spares the district and voters the cost and "levy fatigue" of re-running the same measure every few years. It is not a blank check: the rate stays fixed at 6.95 mills and can only change by another public vote. Sycamore's last operating levy (2016) ran a full decade before this one — the district asks rarely and plans years ahead.

The board publicly weighed both before choosing this levy. A 1% earned income tax would have raised a similar amount and spared retirees (it only taxes wages and self-employment — not pensions, Social Security, or investment income). But the district's analysis found it collects more slowly, a real problem given the budget gap arrives as soon as FY27. It would also stack on top of the municipal income taxes many residents already pay in our district, and unlike a property levy, it exempts businesses entirely, shifting the whole load onto working households. A property levy is also what Sycamore voters know: every operating measure here has been one. The trade-offs are laid out in the district's own financial materials.

Sycamore compares favorably. Per the district's 2026 comparison of Hamilton County and neighboring districts, Sycamore's residential school tax rate sits well below the county average — the 5th lowest among 25 Hamilton County and peer districts compared, lower than Cincinnati, Wyoming, Madeira, Kings, Mariemont, and most other nearby districts. Sycamore delivers a top-rated district at a below-average rate — and its last operating levy, in 2016, lasted a full decade before this ask.

Think of the roughly $30,498,210 reserve as a gas tank, not a slush fund. Under Ohio's HB 920 "tax reduction factor," an existing levy collects about the same dollars every year while costs keep rising, so every district runs its tank down between levies by design — Sycamore has stretched the 2016 levy for a decade this way. The forecast is the fuel gauge, and it shows the tank going empty and then negative by FY30. The board's 25% policy is just the warning light that says "fill up before you're stranded." Acting now, while there's still road left, avoids the far more painful cuts that come from waiting until it's empty.