West Muskingum Superintendent reacts to levy win

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- Last night, voters in Muskingum County passed a levy for the West Muskingum School District. Now the superintendent is thanking the community for the continued support.

The levy, which  is 5.4 mills for 10 years, passed with 1,867 votes yes and 835 votes no. Superintendent Chad Shawger says he stayed up late with staff members to watch the outcome of the election.

 “We had a watch party at the high school in the library and everybody on the levy committee. And we probably had 25 to 35 people there. And just we’re kinda sitting around waiting on results,” said Shawger. “And when we heard that – we did get some good news early that we were ahead the whole time so that made it a little bit easier to breath – but when we finally got the last three precincts in there was a quite a shot from the crowd that it did pass.” 

Shawger said the district receives 32 percent in state funding, but that funding isn’t enough to sustain the schools. In turn, the district relies on the support of the taxpayers to help with costs. Shawger says the levy isn’t new, instead it’s a renewal for a levy that was passed five years ago. The levy will help the district continue to fund current programs.

“It includes everything. So we have, you know, all our athletic programs, all of our arts programs, all of our student programs that we go through,” said Shawger. “We have a very strong AP program at West Muskingum Schools. So all of those things are able to continue and without the support of our community we wouldn’t have been able to continue all of those things.”

The renewed levy is not a new tax. It will last for 10 years and will not increase for the taxpayers. Shawger is grateful to the community for their help.

“I just want to certainly thank the community for all their support. Our staff and students are great. Our staff really reached out to the community in a lot of ways and has been very successful in what we’ve done with students here in the past. And our community believes in what we do here. So we’re very grateful that we have the support of the community.”