After falling behind by a dozen votes on election night Nov. 4, the Jonathan Alder Local Schools’ bond issue appears to have pulled ahead by just three votes after the two largest counties in the district published their official results.
With the official results in for Madison and Union counties, the proposed $70-million bond measure appears to have gained 15 votes thanks to the counting of provisional ballots and absentee ballots received after Election Day. That brought the margin in favor of the issue by three votes.
The current tally of the votes is 2,281 in favor to 2,278 against it, representing a margin of just 0.03% across the district located in parts of Union, Madison and Franklin counties. The issue will now be manually recounted by Madison County before the results are certified.
People cast provisional ballots on Election Day, but they are not counted until later as county election boards across Ohio verify they were cast appropriately.
While Franklin County has yet to certify its results, only three residents voted in the election in that county with no outstanding ballots for the race. Franklin County is expected to certify results Wednesday.
A manual recount could happen as soon as next week, election officials told The Dispatch.
On the Nov. 4 ballot, Jonathan Alder was seeking a proposed property tax levy of 5.12 mills for 37 years to fund a $70,625,000 bond issue for school construction and improvements. If it is ultimately certified, property owners would pay $179 for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s appraised value.
In a statement sent to families, district officials said they wanted to express “our deepest gratitude.”
“The final vote total confirms the incredible support and effort invested by so many in our community,” the letter to families said. “We understand that an automatic recount means a few more days of waiting, but we remain focused on the future of our students and the strong vision outlined in the facility plan.”
In unofficial results on Nov. 4 Election Day, the levy failed by just 12 votes — 2,242 to 2,254. During a May attempt at a similar bond issue, it failed by 16 votes after the election certification process.
Apparent flip in results comes as Jonathan Alder board eyeing suit on Union County treasurer
The apparent change in fortune for the Jonathan Alder Local Schools comes as the district’s board is weighing legal action against the Union County treasurer over mailers he sent to property owners — which arrived the day before the election for many voters.
The dispute between the board and county Treasurer Andrew Smarra comes after around 13,000 Union County residents received mailers beginning Nov. 3, informing them that property taxes were rising. In the mailer, Smarra provided property owners their estimated tax figures and noted that it is the county auditor’s job to perform a visual inspection every six years to help reassess each parcel.
At a Nov. 11 Jonathan Alder school board meeting, board members grilled him about the mailers before voting unanimously to pursue legal action against him, with some members saying the mailers were a “malicious” attempt to sabotage the bond issue. Smarra has maintained that there was “nothing insidious” about them.
In the fallout from the mailer, Union County Auditor Andrea Weaver previously said Smarra never told her the mailers were being sent and the figures he provided weren’t updated or complete. She called the mailing “completely wrong and unnecessary.”
This article has been updated to include comment from Jonathan Alder School district and to correct the current margin of the results.
Cole Behrens covers K-12 education and school districts in central Ohio. Have a tip? Contact Cole at cbehrens@dispatch.com or connect with him on X at @Colebehr_report
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Jonathan Alder levy’s fortune flips after official tally puts it up 3 votes as recount looms
Reporting by Cole Behrens, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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