BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio — Tuesday is Election Day in Ohio and Indiana.
In addition to all the local and statewide elected officials, you'll also notice other issues on your ballot, depending on where you live.
One of those issues would support people with developmental disabilities.
Voters will decide yes or no on a countywide levy that will go solely toward the programs offered through the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
The board just went through major restructuring after declaring a fiscal emergency earlier in the year.
The board already had to cut 31 jobs and move some of its operations. Those will help save millions of dollars, but more steps are needed. This levy would generate $26.5 million at a cost of $70 a year for every $100,000 that your home is worth.
The money would support more than 4,000 people in Butler County who rely on disability services like early intervention, employment, and home support.
"Right now, there isn't a safeguard for that," Superintendent Lee Ann Emmons said. "That isn't a mandated service. There isn't a backup agency that can provide those services. So those families would just go without, or they would have to try to get help from their physicians, local children's hospital. And there just isn't those resources to come in and do the in-home coaching and that type of thing."
Emmons says the decision to cut 24% of jobs was a hard one.
"The great majority of staff were worried about the people that we support and what was going to happen to them," Emmons said. "And even though they were being impacted, it just shows you the quality of the people that work here, which makes it even harder."
"Making those cuts prior to asking the voters for their support so they understand just how serious what's happening is and what is at risk," Emmons said.
Emmons says the board has been doing everything in its power to make dollars stretch. The last time a levy like this was on the ballot was over two decades ago.
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