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Issue 4 Levy Would Continue To Fund Sinclair Community College In Montgomery County

Sinclair Community College
WYSO/Joshua Chenault
/
WYSO

Early voting is underway ahead of Tuesday’s elections. In Montgomery County, voters will consider a levy to continue funding Sinclair Community College.   

Issue 4 asks voters to approve 3.2 mills for 10 years of Sinclair operating and capital expenses. The renewal measure would not raise taxes.

Sinclair president Steven Johnson says the levy generates a sizable portion of the school’s funding.

“The Montgomery County levy for Sinclair Community College has consistently been about 20 percent of Sinclair’s revenue, so that is not a new thing," he says. "That 20 percent proportion is pretty consistent.”

Issue 4 has attracted some criticism this fall. A group calling itself Keep Sinclair Fair has run anti-levy ads paid for by the “Reconstructing Dayton PAC.”

The group’s website says Montgomery County’s levy for Sinclair is unfair because nearby counties with satellite campuses are not equally taxed.

Johnson disputes this characterization, saying, if voters approve Issue 4, the funds will support the school’s Dayton campus.

“All of the Montgomery County levy proceeds must stay in Montgomery County and be used on Montgomery County operations – and that’s by law, that’s by state law,” he says. 

He notes students at Sinclair satellite campuses have fewer degree offerings and they pay around 50 percent more in tuition. The Montgomery County levy for Sinclair has been in place since the Sixties.  

You can read about more issues facing voters this fall in the League Of Women Voters Voters Guide

Jess Mador comes to WYSO from Knoxville NPR-station WUOT, where she created an interactive multimedia health storytelling project called TruckBeat, one of 15 projects around the country participating in AIR's Localore: #Finding America initiative. Before TruckBeat, Jess was an independent public radio journalist based in Minneapolis. She’s also worked as a staff reporter and producer at Minnesota Public Radio in the Twin Cities, and produced audio, video and web stories for a variety of other news outlets, including NPR News, APM, and PBS television stations. She has a Master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She loves making documentaries and telling stories at the intersection of journalism, digital and social media.
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