Madison Village voters will decide the fate of a 5.18-mill levy for police operations in the May 2 Special Election.
The levy, which will have a continuous duration, consists of 3.8 replacement mills and a 1.38-mill increase. If approved, the levy would generate $450,000 per year and cost taxpayers $181.30 annually per $100,000 in property valuation, according to the Lake County Auditor’s Office.
Revenue from the proposed levy would be used to cover salaries, the cost of providing and maintaining vehicles, supplies and equipment, and other general operating expenses for the village Police Department.
If the combined replacement and additional levy on the May 2 ballot passes, Madison Village will be able collect tax revenue based on current property values, rather than those on the books when its current police levy was passed in 2014.
When village voters cast ballots nine years ago, they approved a continuous 3.8-mill police levy which was intended to produce $240,000 per year.
“It’s no secret that the cost of everything has risen astronomically in recent years, and we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve, while at the same time growing our police department to accommodate our local growth,” village Administrator Dwayne Bailey said.
Six or seven years ago, Madison Village government decided to change the composition of the police department to have a more professional full-time staff of officers who are familiar with the community, Bailey said.
“Prior to that, the department was staffed by a majority of part-timers who worked for multiple communities,” he said. “They just weren’t here day in and day out to know the residents, to do community policing and stuff like that.”
In 2023, the village appropriated funding for 10 full-time officers, including Chief Troy McIntosh; and five part-time officers.
The police department’s growth in recent years has occurred primarily in response to the ongoing commercial development around the Interstate 90 and Route 528 interchange, McIntosh said.
“When the original levy was passed in 2014, the village didn’t have the hotels or truck stops we have now, and that area is continuing to develop,” he said.
For 2023, the police department’s budget totals about $1.3 million. In 2014, the year during which the existing levy passed, $539,000 was budgeted for the police department.
McIntosh noted that the existing police levy funded just over 40 percent of the police department’s budget in 2016.
“This year, it’s projected to fund slightly less than 25 percent of our budget,” he said.
Madison Village’s existing 3.8-mill police levy costs taxpayers $102.67 a year per $100,000 in property valuation, according to the Lake County Auditor’s Office.
The cost to the taxpayer per $100,000 originally was higher, but has been scaled back over the years as property values in the village has risen. That’s because Ohio law mandates that voted levies cannot extract more revenue from property owners than they were directed to pay in the first year that taxes from a levy were collected.
The current levy generates $256,000 a year in revenue — slightly higher than the original $240,000 annual yield — but that’s only because of new homes and businesses that were added in Madison after 2014, according to the Lake County Auditor’s Office.
The 5.18-mill levy, in comparison to the current police levy, would cost village taxpayers an additional $78.63 annually per $100,000 in property valuation, if it secures passage on May 2.
Bailey said that approval of the 5.18-mill police levy will help to maintain the current level of service and protection that Madison Village residents have come to expect from their police department.
Additional revenue also is needed so the police department can keep up with rising operating costs, and protect the growing number of nonresidents who are coming into the village because of business development at the I-90 and Route 528 interchange, he added.
There were 2,276 registered voters in Madison Village as of April 21, Lake County Elections Board records showed.
