Park District Levy on This Year’s Ballot

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – This year’s November election may not have any big name races in Muskingum County but what is on the ballot hits close to home.

Muskingum Valley Park District Executive Director Russell Edgington explained the role his agency plays in making the community a better place to live and discussed the need for voter support by renewing the levy on this year’s ballot. 

“So it’s a 0.2 mil, 5-year levy. It will be basically replacing the existing levy, which will expire next year. 0.2 mils, the interesting fact about it, the original levy cost the average homeowner or homeowners $7 dollars a year for every $100,000 dollars of evaluation. This renewal is going to drop that figure down to $5 dollars per $100,000 dollars of valuation. And so it’s actually a savings,” Edgington said. 

The Muskingum Valley Park District does a lot in their own way to improve the standard of living in our community and is striving to find ways that will make a bigger impact. Edgington says that taxpayers’ pennies attract millions of dollars in grant funding.

“But what it does is it generates about $450,000 dollars a year of revenue that we use for operational… Mowing the grass, paying salaries, covering the cost of repairs of equipment,” Edgington said. “Also, what people don’t understand is that small amount of money helps us leverage for grants. So during the last 5-year funding cycle, we’ve actually brought in over $2 million dollars worth of grant revenues.”

The park district follows suggestions gathered from residential survey information to determine the direction of their development projects. Those projects are then carried out through grant monies, which are ultimately secured by the voters’ support of the levy.