Board hears options as $3M in bond service falls off: bond, income tax or tax relief

At the Granville Exempted Village School District's special work session, presenter David Conley reviewed the district's outstanding debt and the near‑term choices that will follow as bond service falls.

Conley said the district currently collects roughly $3,000,000 a year in bond payments; that obligation drops to about $1,000,000 in 2029 and is scheduled to be paid off in 2031. He told the board those changes create three principal policy options: let property taxes decline when the bonds are paid (delivering immediate tax relief to homeowners), issue a new bond that reuses the existing debt service capacity (Conley cited a hypothetical $55,000,000 bond as an example), or seek a quarter‑percent increase in the income tax that would raise approximately the same revenue as the current bond payments.

Board members discussed political feasibility and distributional effects. Some members said the community prefers being able to vote on increases, while others favored minimizing the number of times residents must return to the ballot. Several speakers noted the tradeoff that an income tax would not capture new commercial tax revenue in the same way a property‑tax approach might.

No formal decision was made; Conley recommended the draft policy include language that explains how any newly passed levies or income tax measures would interact with future development agreements (for example, whether newly passed levies would be excluded from TIF capture). The board asked Conley to circulate a cleaned draft and to return for a follow‑up meeting where members will comment on specific language.