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Lakota Local
4.5 of 5 stars overall · Ohio School Report Card 2025-26Lakota Local’s school levies cost a home about $828 a year for every $100,000 of its value. Its pupils’ test scores rank 117th of Ohio’s 607 districts, and in 2024-25 it spent $14,229 per student to run its schools, well under the Ohio average of $17,609. All three are the state’s own figures: the Department of Taxation’s certified tax rates, the School Report Card and the District Profile Report.
Its homes are in Liberty Township, West Chester Township and Monroe.
What Lakota Local’s school levies cost a home
$828 a year for every $100,000 of a home’s value, tax year 2025
That is Lakota Local’s part of the property tax bill on a home its owner lives in: 23.65 mills, after House Bill 920’s reduction and the state’s rollback credits. A home the county values at $200,000 pays about $1,656 a year for its schools; at $300,000, about $2,483.
About $108 of every $828 pays for buildings, equipment and the loans for them — its bond and permanent-improvement levies. The rest is day-to-day money.
Its day-to-day levies stand at 23.22 mills on the state’s 2025 rates, above Ohio’s 20-mill floor, so when the county revalues homes their rate is cut and they collect the same dollars.
A home’s value here is the county’s value for it, not a sale price. The homestead exemption, for owners 65 and over or disabled, lowers it more. The county’s, your city’s or township’s and any library levies are on the same bill on top of this: check your own bill for all of it, or see every levy behind this figure.
Homeowners 65 and over in the Lakota Local school district
27% of the homes their owners live in, in the Lakota Local school district, belong to someone 65 or older — about 8,400 homes, give or take 2 points.
Butler County: 31% · Ohio: 33%
Owners who are 65 or older, or disabled, can claim Ohio’s homestead exemption, which takes part of a home’s value off the bill; most must have an income under the state’s limit. From the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020–2024 five-year estimates (table B25007, owner-occupied homes by the age of the householder). A survey, so every figure has a margin of error.
2Home values
What homes are worth against what they are taxed on
What homes in Lakota Local are worth, and what they’re taxed on
Since January 2009, homes in the zip codes that make up Lakota Local have risen 113% in value. The district’s taxable value of homes and farms rose 108% — not smoothly, but in steps each time values are reset — and inflation 60%.
How much each has risen since 2009
What homes are worth: Zillow’s typical home value in the district’s zip codes, monthly. What they are taxed on: the district’s taxable value of homes and farms, which moves when values are reset. Inflation: U.S. consumer prices.
- What homes are worth+113%
- What they are taxed on+108%
- Inflation+60%
| Tax year | Taxable value | Change | Values reset |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $4.19B | 0% | |
| 2024 | $4.18B | +2% | |
| 2023 | $4.12B | +40% | Update |
| 2022 | $2.94B | +4% | |
| 2021 | $2.82B | +2% | |
| 2020 | $2.76B | +16% | Reappraisal |
| 2019 | $2.38B | +2% | |
| 2018 | $2.34B | +2% | |
| 2017 | $2.29B | +10% | Update |
| 2016 | $2.08B | +3% |
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Taxable value is 35% of what the county appraises, for the district’s homes and farmland, so it also grows as new homes are built. Zillow publishes home values by zip code, not school district, so this follows the zip codes that make up the district, each counted by how much of it lies inside; a month in which one zip’s figure jumps by more than any market moves is left out. Values reset every three years, alternating a full reappraisal and an update, on Butler County’s schedule. Sources: the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s District Profile Report and the Department of Taxation’s abstracts, Zillow’s Home Value Index and U.S. consumer prices (CPI-U).
3Levies & the ballot
Every levy collected here, and what is on the ballot
Every Lakota Local levy still on the bill
These are the school district’s own levies. Anything else on the same bill — the county’s, your city’s, village’s or township’s, and any library, park or career-centre levy — belongs to someone else and is not in this list.
12 school levies approved by voters are still on Lakota Local tax bills. The most recent was first approved in 2013, and the oldest in 1976 or earlier — the state’s records do not say which year, and why is below. Together they are 17.97 mills on a home its owner lives in, after House Bill 920’s reduction and after the state’s rollback credits — which is what is actually charged, not what the ballot said.
| First approved | Purpose | Mills on a home | Share of the district’s rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Current expense | 1.919 | 8.1% |
| 2013 | Permanent improvement | 1.096 | 4.6% |
| 2005 | Current expense | 2.685 | 11.4% |
| 2005 | Bond repayment $84,300,000 borrowed | 1.120 | 4.7% |
| 2000 | Current expense | 1.922 | 8.1% |
| 2000 | Bond repayment $44,571,000 borrowed | 0.875 | 3.7% |
| 1996 | Current expense | 2.234 | 9.4% |
| 1991 | Current expense | 1.757 | 7.4% |
| 1988 | Current expense | 1.249 | 5.3% |
| 1985 | Current expense | 1.151 | 4.9% |
| 1978 | Current expense | 0.379 | 1.6% |
| 1976 or earlier | Current expense | 1.585 | 6.7% |
| Never | Inside millage — no vote was ever taken on it | 5.679 | 24.0% |
| All | The district’s school rate | 23.652 | 100% |
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2 of them cost you more than the rate says
Ohio stopped paying the 10% and 2.5% rollback credits on new levies approved from the November 2013 ballot onward; renewals and substitute levies for older ones keep them. So 3.02 of these 23.65 mills arrive at full price, and the same millage on an older levy would cost a homeowner about an eighth less. The state’s rate file marks which levies qualify, and that mark is what this counts.
What these purposes mean
Current expense is the day-to-day money — salaries, heat, buses — and it is most of any district’s rate. Emergency and substitute levies are also day-to-day money, written to raise a fixed number of dollars a year rather than a fixed rate. Permanent improvement pays for buildings and equipment and may not be spent on salaries. Bond repayment is paying back money already borrowed, usually for a building, and it ends when the borrowing does. Classroom facilities is the state’s school-building programme, where the state pays a share and the district votes the rest.
Why some of them say “1976 or earlier”
House Bill 920 — the law that stops a levy collecting more money when values rise — took effect in 1976, so that is the first year the state tracks a reduction for. Everything voted before it is filed under 1976 and the certified records do not say which year it actually was. Statewide, 610 of Ohio’s 611 school districts have at least one, and here they are 1.59 of these 23.65 mills. So the honest reading of that row is “half a century ago at least”, not “1976”.
Tax year 2025, from the Department of Taxation’s certified rates: the school levies on one real bill, in the taxing district holding the most of this district’s home and farm value. The year is the one the state files each levy under, which is when it was first approved: a levy voters have since renewed keeps its original year, and an incremental levy’s later steps are shown with the vote they belong to. Each purpose is the state’s own, spelled one way — the certified file files “current expense” under eight different spellings. Inside millage is the up-to-ten mills a government may levy with no vote, and it is the part House Bill 920 does not hold down. Why a bill rises when a value does explains the rest.
Lakota Local Schools on the November 3, 2026 ballot
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Bond, $223.5 million
New School buildingsRenovate, improve & construct school facilities · 37 years · from 2028
$77 a year for each $100,000 of the county auditor’s value
The county auditor’s estimate, as the district states it: 2.2 mills a year on average over the life of the bond. Source: Lakota Local Schools.
For a home the county values at $300,000: $231 a year $400,000: $308 a year $500,000: $385 a year
Borrows $223.5 million over 37 years, repaid by a property tax levy. Its rate is set each year to meet that year’s payments, so it moves around the estimate, and like any levy approved now it carries none of the state’s rollback credits. Your home’s county value is on your tax bill.
Lakota Local Schools says it would start collecting in 2029, when its current bonds are paid off, so it does not expect its bond tax rate to rise. Source: Lakota Local Schools.
Building money: kept outside the general fund, so a budget forecast never shows it.
How its earlier votes went: since March 17, 2020, voters have decided 1 Lakota Local Schools tax issue — 0 passed and 1 failed. Of the issues asking for new money, 0 of 1 passed.
4Schools
Scores, spending and budgets
Test scoresSpendingSuperintendent payBudgetThe Report Card's figuresWhere the money comes from
Lakota Local’s test scores: 117th of 607 districts
Ohio’s Performance Index scores every district on its pupils’ state tests, from 0 to 120. In 2025-26 Lakota Local scored 97.1: 117th of Ohio’s 607 school districts, in the 10–20% band from the top. The state rates that achievement 4 of 5 stars, and its Progress — how much pupils grew compared with what their own earlier scores predicted — 4 of 5.
These are test scores, and test scores follow family income closely; Progress follows it much less. On the state’s own list, which also ranks community and STEM schools, Lakota Local is 127th of 871.
| Year sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Overall activate to sort by Overall | Score activate to sort by Score | Rank activate to sort by Rank | Achievement activate to sort by Achievement | Progress activate to sort by Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 97.1 | 117 of 607 10–20% |
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| 2024-25 | 96.2 | 130 of 607 20–30% |
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| 2023-24 | 94.6 | 144 of 607 20–30% |
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| 2022-23 | 93.0 | 173 of 607 20–30% |
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| 2021-22 | — | 91.3 | 174 of 607 20–30% |
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Its schools, 2025-26
Of its 21 schools on the state’s list, Independence Elementary School has the highest test scores: 106.8 on the Performance Index, 119th of Ohio’s 2,933 ranked schools.
| School activate to sort by School | Overall activate to sort by Overall | Grades activate to sort by Grades | Score activate to sort by Score | Rank sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Achievement activate to sort by Achievement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Independence Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 106.8 | 119 of 2933 top 10% |
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Liberty Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2,P | 104.1 | 215 of 2933 top 10% |
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Liberty Junior SchoolJunior High School, grades 7-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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7-8 | 102.3 | 313 of 2933 10–20% |
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VanGorden Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 101.4 | 360 of 2933 10–20% |
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Wyandot Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2 | 101.1 | 378 of 2933 10–20% |
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Lakota East High SchoolHigh School, grades 9-12,UNG. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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9-12,UNG | 100.9 | 399 of 2933 10–20% |
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Endeavor Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 99.4 | 494 of 2933 10–20% |
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Creekside Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2 | 98.8 | 535 of 2933 10–20% |
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Cherokee Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 98.0 | 576 of 2933 10–20% |
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Woodland Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 97.7 | 602 of 2933 20–30% |
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Lakota Plains Junior SchoolJunior High School, grades 7-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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7-8 | 97.2 | 642 of 2933 20–30% |
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Hopewell Junior SchoolJunior High School, grades 7-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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7-8 | 95.6 | 778 of 2933 20–30% |
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Lakota West High SchoolHigh School, grades 9-12,UNG. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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9-12,UNG | 95.3 | 800 of 2933 20–30% |
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Hopewell Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2 | 94.6 | 853 of 2933 20–30% |
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Heritage Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2 | 94.4 | 873 of 2933 20–30% |
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Union Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 94.1 | 898 of 2933 30–40% |
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Lakota Ridge Junior SchoolJunior High School, grades 7-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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7-8 | 93.8 | 922 of 2933 30–40% |
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Freedom Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 92.6 | 1013 of 2933 30–40% |
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Adena Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades 3-6. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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3-6 | 92.1 | 1056 of 2933 30–40% |
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Shawnee Early Childhood School†Elementary School, grades K-2. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-2 | 84.2 | 1727 of 2933 50–60% |
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Lakota CentralHigh School, grades K-12. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-12 | 62.4 | 2593 of 2933 80–90% |
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† A school with no tested grades of its own — most often kindergarten to second grade — is ranked by the state on a stand-in: the later test scores of pupils who attended it.
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, Performance Index and Value-Added rankings and the Report Card’s overall and component ratings, School Report Card downloads. Ranked here among the traditional districts (and their schools); a tie shares a rank. Every district and county.
What Lakota Local spends per student
In 2024-25, Lakota Local spent $14,229 per student to run its schools. That pays for teachers, buses, utilities and supplies for its 16,736 enrolled students; the cost of building schools and paying off their loans isn’t included. 57% of it went to teaching, the same as statewide. The figures are the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s District Profile Report.
It had the equivalent of 832 full-time teachers that year, 20.1 students for each, against 14.2 across Ohio.
The state’s School Report Card shows $11,540 for the same money, because it divides by weighted pupils: why the two differ.
Ohio overall: 57%
Ohio overall: 10%
Ohio overall: 111
Ohio overall: 14
What each Lakota Local student’s $14,229 pays for
Where it went in 2024-25, in the state’s own categories, with its building category split into running buildings, buses and school meals. They add to the $14,229 per student to the dollar, because they are the state’s own split of it.
- Teaching$8,159 per student 57%
- Administration$1,494 per student 11%
- Buses$1,427 per student 10%
- Pupil support$1,226 per student 9%
- Running buildings$1,040 per student 7%
- School meals$478 per student 3%
- Staff support$404 per student 3%
Administration is the state’s category and it includes every building principal’s office, not only the board and the central office, as the state’s Expenditure Flow Model handbook sets out.
How that share has moved
The teaching share for this district, every year we hold, drawn as one line per set of the department’s definitions. The gaps are deliberate: the categories were re-cut in FY2013 and the pupil count changed in FY2022, so a line across either would draw a definition as a decision this district made.
Share of Lakota Local’s spending that goes to teaching
Ohio District Profile Reports for this district, as published. One district’s single year can move several points and come back — a building project, a grant, a year a category was filed differently — so read the run rather than the point. FY2014’s revenue figures are a known bad workbook statewide; its spending figures, which are what this chart draws, are not affected.
- FY22–FY2557.34%
- FY13–FY2158.54%
- FY10–FY1260.37%
What Lakota Local pays its superintendent
The superintendent’s post at Lakota Local changed hands in 2024-25; those who held it were paid at $199,500 a year on average.
Its treasurer, who keeps the district’s books, was paid $166,000, low for a district of its size.
From 2005-06 to 2023-24, its superintendent’s salary went from $135,000 to $200,000: +48%, against +40% for Ohio’s middle district and +56% for prices.
Lakota Local’s superintendent, 2005-06 to 2023-24
Salaries as paid in each year, one person in the post all year. A step is often a new superintendent. No point for 2017-18, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, when the post changed hands, was shared or was reported for part of the year; the line runs straight across.
- This district$200,000
- Ohio's middle district$135,594
The state’s figures; the package is our estimate. Every district in Butler County, and how the estimate is made →
Lakota Local’s budget forecast
What the district itself forecasts, in the budget it files with the state — the Fiscal Year 2027 First Required Forecast (Fall).
- Cash, June 30, 2026
- $51.7M
- Runs short
- FY2030
- New levy in the forecast
- Property tax
2.7 months of that year’s spending
on its own forecast, if its levies are renewed and no new one passes
from FY2029, not yet approved by voters
The full budget: cash, unencumbered and unreserved balances, and every line of the forecast →
Lakota Local’s own notes and assumptions for this forecast (PDF) →
Why the state’s Report Card shows different numbers
Ohio publishes two sets of school spending figures, and both are the state’s own. This page uses the District Profile Report: day-to-day spending divided by the pupils actually enrolled. Lakota Local’s School Report Card works it out differently:
- Its per-pupil figure is lower. It divides by weighted pupils (Financial Data Technical Documentation): students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and English learners count as more than one pupil. In 2024-25 Lakota Local spent $238,139,115 on day-to-day costs. This page divides that by the 16,736 pupils enrolled: $14,229. The Report Card divides the same money by 20,636 weighted pupils: $11,540. Its newest edition may be for a later year than this page.
- Its classroom share is higher. Its “classroom instruction” adds pupil support (counselling, nurses, psychologists) and staff training to teaching. Counted that way, this page’s figures come to 69% here.
Where Lakota Local’s money comes from
2024-25: every dollar that came in, from every source — $13,887 a student — and who it came from. It is not all spent on running the schools in the same year, so it does not match the spending above.
| Source | Total | Per student | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local taxes | $123.7M | $7,393 | 53% |
| The state | $64.8M | $3,873 | 28% |
| Washington | $10.6M | $633 | 5% |
| Fees, tuition and interest | $33.3M | $1,989 | 14% |
| All of it | $232.4M | $13,887 | 100% |
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Where the money comes from is the state’s split, by the accounting code each district files it under. A district’s bookkeeping can put local money, such as payments from development (TIF) districts, in another column.
Property tax billed for tax year 2024, on every kind of property in the district (the career-tech district’s levies aside): $8,224 a pupil — of which the state pays $804 as rollback and homestead credits, and owners pay the rest. It is not a slice of the local line above: that line is money received in the 2025 school year, the two cover different years, and not every bill is paid.
Taxable value behind it: $313,379 a pupil, so each mill of tax raises about $313 a pupil. Where the state’s share comes from, including the lottery.
The rest of Butler County
Every district with homes in the county, largest presence first. Lakota Local is one of 15.
Fairfield City · Hamilton City · Talawanda City · Middletown City · Ross Local · Edgewood City · Monroe Local · Madison Local · New Miami Local · Princeton City · Southwest Local · Mason City · Northwest Local · Preble Shawnee Local
Butler County’s own page has what its homes are billed and where that money goes; the statewide picture has the same figures for all 606 districts in the state’s report, the ones it leaves out, and what the data cannot say.
This is an estimate built from public records — not tax, legal or financial advice, and not an appraisal. Only your county’s own statement is authoritative about your bill. If you’re thinking of challenging your value, confirm the details with your county’s Board of Revision or a property-tax professional. The full terms.