TROY TOWNSHIP — Voters in Troy Township are being asked to help maintain the level of preservation at Nova Cemetery.
A five-year, 0.5-mill levy is up for renewal on Nov. 3, which generates $14,590 annually to help maintain and operate the cemetery, located along the east side of Ohio 511, according to the county auditor’s estimate.
To raise these funds, homeowners are taxed $11 per each $100,000 of the county auditor’s market value — commencing in 2027 and first due in calendar year 2028 — which is roughly 92 cents per month.
As a renewal, the levy is not a new tax and will not result in increases in taxes for homeowners.
The levy was most recently approved by voters in November 2021 by a vote count of 120 (65.93 percent) in favor to 62 (34.07) opposed.
Chase Galloway, a Troy Township trustee, said levy funds help with landscaping and general upkeep, but also play a key role to help maintain the older portion of Nova Cemetery.
The levy has been in place before and since Galloway first became a trustee in 2021.
Headstone corrections and repairs to sinking footers and bases are just a few of the efforts made to help preserve the older gravesites, Galloway said. But it all costs money.
“We want to have respect for the families,” he said Thursday. “We take pride in all of our properties, whether it’s the baseball field or the cemetery.”
The levy funding enables trustees to plan for the site’s future, Galloway said. Should voters not approve the renewal, he said it would limit the township’s ability to uphold the level of care it currently performs to the cemetery.
“We would be able to maintain it (cemetery), but we’d start to struggle a bit with any upgrades or repairs,” he said.
