The village council voted 5-0 on April 25 to suspend the rules and adopt Resolution 11-20-25, sending a five-year public safety levy question to the ballot that would allow an additional tax in excess of the 10-mill limitation for police, fire and emergency medical services.

Council action matters because the levy is intended specifically to pay for contracted public safety services — including the village's contract with Miami Township Fire Department and its police contract with the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office — and because council members and staff said levy proceeds may not produce a long-term surplus once projected contract increases are included.

Council discussion focused on how levy revenues are restricted and on five-year budget projections. Council members and staff clarified that all levy proceeds, if approved by voters, must be used for public safety services only and cannot be diverted to other purposes. Staff told the council the levy does not create a sustained surplus over the full five-year projection; there may be a short-lived surplus in the first one to two years within the dedicated safety service fund, but later years are projected to require some general-fund subsidy for items such as vehicle purchases and other costs if contracts and expenditures increase as expected. The council discussed that the sheriff's contract will be renegotiated in roughly two years and that the village is projecting contract increases (staff referenced an assumed 10% projection for the sheriff's contract and a 5% annual increase for other contracts as part of budgeting assumptions). Council members also referenced an approximate $80,000 shortfall in the final year of the five-year projection, described as an estimate rather than a firm figure.

Procedurally, the council first voted to suspend the rules for Resolution 11-20-25, then voted to adopt it. The roll-call votes were recorded as 5-0 in favor of both suspending the rules and adopting the resolution. After adoption, the council directed that the resolution be delivered to the board of elections; the board will assign a ballot number and prepare the official ballot language. Council members and staff noted the village will post the auditor's certification and that the ballot question will proceed only after the board of elections performs its usual administrative steps.

Public participation at the meeting was minimal: one resident, identified in the meeting as Mr. Oppenheimer, attended and did not make comments. No additional public testimony on the levy was recorded in the transcript.

Next steps identified by the council: deliver the resolution and related certification to the board of elections for numbering and ballot language, and await the scheduling and wording decisions the board will make. Council members emphasized that the levy, if approved by voters, would be spent only on fire, EMS and police services under the stated contracts and not on unrelated general-fund items.