Shifting tax burdens: School district property and income tax referenda in Ohio, 1988--2000

The purpose of this dissertation is to answer the following research question: What effects do tax burden variables and other categories of independent variables have on aggregate-level voting behavior in school district property and income tax levy elections in Ohio? Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis is used to generate standardized and unstandardized coefficients from data sets containing 1,256 property tax and 473 income tax operating expense levies held between 1988–2000 in 223 school districts in Ohio. The dependent variable is the affirmative “yes” vote percentage of a school district tax levy. The 29 independent variables are classified into five variable categories: (1) tax burden; (2) election characteristic; (3) voter demographic; (4) school district characteristic; and (5) “other” characteristic variables. Eight tax burden voting behavior hypotheses grounded in rational choice theory are formulated to test whether aggregate-level voting behavior varies in school district property and income tax levy elections in Ohio.;The OLS regression coefficients indicate several significant findings. First, increases in the percentage of total school district property taxes being paid by businesses and utilities in a school district cause increases in the affirmative vote percentages of property tax levies and decreases in the affirmative vote percentages of income tax levies. Second, increases in the percentage of school district residents who are farmers and aged 65 and older have positive, rather than negative, influences on the affirmative vote percentages of property tax levies. Third, increases in the percentages of school district residents who are renters, farmers, and aged 65 and older have positive influences on the affirmative vote percentages of income tax levies. Fourth and fifth, increases in the quality of education produced by a school district and the Ohio Supreme Court decision in DeRolph (1997) have positive effects on the affirmative vote percentages of property and income tax levies. Finally, this study concludes that rational choice theory provides a partial explanation of aggregate-level voting behavior in school district tax levy elections in Ohio.