2025 Police Levy
On the November 4, 2025 ballot, Pierce Township residents will decide on a 2.8 mills police operating levy
What will the levy do?
Levy revenue will cover payroll, operational expenses, and facility maintenance. Funds generated by the levy will be used to maintain and increase the Police Department’s service level, including the hiring of patrol officers, the assignment of detectives, and the updating and expansion of law enforcement tools and equipment. This levy will not finance the construction of a new building.
What will it cost?
Property taxes are calculated by Mill Rate or millage, abbreviated mill. In general, mills represent $1 per $1,000 of appraised home value. To determine the exact assessed value of your home, please consult the Clermont County Auditor’s entry for your address.
Mills are complicated and their usage can be confusing. It’s important to remember that voters establish a set dollar amount for a levy. If passed, the levy will take a “snapshot” of all property values at a specific date and mills are how individual contributions to that set amount are determined.
Because of this, individual levy contributions have the potential to decrease as the population grows and more properties are built. This levy will not be affected by increases in property values, as the set rate is permanent and contributions are factored by that amount. To illustrate that point, the last police levy was passed in 2007 and no new property tax increases in the intervening 18 years have gone to the Pierce Township Police Department. It is still being funded by the set amount from 2007.
This levy is expected to generate $1,856,641 per year, all of which will go to the Police Department.
What will the levy pay for?
This levy is not related to the construction of a new building. Proceeds will continue to employ 18 full-time police officers and 2 non-sworn support personnel. The Department is authorized to employ an additional 1 part-time and 2 full-time officers, but has deferred hiring until the levy is approved by the residents. Equipment purchases, building maintenance projects, and officer training have also been deferred until funding is secured.
Why is the levy needed?
Pierce Township residents have approved five property tax levies for the Police Department, the most recent was in 2007 for 2.9 mills. That was projected to fund the Police Department for 10 years. Due to conservative budgeting, it has lasted almost 20 years. If this levy is not passed by residents, the Police Department will exhaust its carryover balance in 2026 and will become insolvent.
When passed, a police levy sets a fixed amount of revenue. The amount that property owners pay into that levy is reflected in the millage amount, that’s called the original rate. While the total revenue remains the same, the individual rate can decline due to population growth, that’s called the effective rate. This compounds year after year, the 1976 levy was set at 1.5 mills but today generates only 0.197 mills per property owner.
Due to inflation, the value of the initial fixed revenue amount also declines over time. Similar to an individual’s purchasing power deteriorating, a set tax rate generates diminishing revenue. $100 in 1976 was worth vastly more than $100 in 2025.
The Pierce Township Police Department has an authorized property tax rate of 9.4 mills but effectively only receives 3.4 mills, less than a third of its voted amount. Additionally, the population has increased substantially since the last levy was approved. After the dissolution of the former Village of Amelia, Pierce Township’s population grew 26% quite literally overnight. Pierce Township employed more police officers in 2008 than it does in 2025, despite an overall population increase of 1/3rd.
In real terms, the Police Department is still receiving the same funding it did in 2007.
Why does this have to be voted on?
In general, township residents are subject to two types of property taxes: inside millage and outside millage.
Inside millage is a non-voted tax, legally capped at 1% of a property’s actual value. This is colloquially known as the “10 mill limit” because most areas automatically tax up to that maximum amount. Many overlapping levels of government typically share that 1%, including school districts, county governments, park districts, libraries, and others. In recent years, increases in property values following state-mandated reassessments have raised the dollar amount collected under the ten mill limit. However, Pierce Township does not generate enough revenue from this inside millage to fund the Police Department, let alone the other services it provides.
Outside millage, on the other hand, is a tax approved by voters. In Pierce Township, voter-approved levies fund services such as Police, Fire, Waste, and others. Broadly speaking, the Ohio Constitution allows inside millage to sometimes pay for outside millage costs, but not vice versa. Outside millage has financed the Police Department since 1976. Statewide, very few townships are able to fund themselves solely through inside millage. The 1% tax paid by property owners is simply split among too many entities to effectively fund significant services.
Generally, townships receive less than 20% of the inside millage levied on their residents, which is why voted levies are necessary to fund essential services.
How does the Department Spend its Money?
Displayed to the left is a condensed version of the Police Department’s 2024 budget. As you may notice, 85% of all expenses go to employee salary and benefits. Cuts to other budget items would have a limited impact on expenses; if the levy fails police officers will have to be laid-off, there is simply no other way to balance revenue versus expenses.
Spending has already been greatly reduced regarding expected versus actual expenses. Administrators have made the attempt to be as frugal as possible with purchasing, stretching the 2007 levy funding far past its expected lifespan. The amount of funding spent on line-items besides personnel is marginal compared to the total budget. Additionally, many important and expensive budgetary items have been deferred until after the resolution of the levy. Significant personnel cuts are inevitable if a new levy is not authorized by the voters, it is the only meaningful way to balance revenue and expenses.
Compared to other township and city police agencies in Clermont County: the Pierce Township Police Department has the least amount of officers authorized, has the second-lowest maximum pay scale, and operates under the second smallest budget.
A 2018 study found that in the United States, a typical police department budgets 80% to 90% of its costs to salary and benefits (health insurance, retirement contributions, workers compensation, etc.)
In FY 2025, 88% of the Pierce Township Police Department’s budget is comprised of salary and benefits. Besides personnel costs, major expenses include vehicle purchases and maintenance, body worn cameras, TASERs and firearms, ammunition and consumables, software services, and telecommunications support.
If the levy does not pass, the primary impact will be to officers. The amount of non-personnel related costs are marginal compared to the entire budget, and cuts made there will only have a limited impact on potential deficit spending.
We have heard from many people suggesting the Police Department look into grant funding or alternative means of financing. The reality is, while there are a large amount of state, federal, and private grants available, they are almost exclusively allotted for specific expenses; such as body cameras, body armor, traffic enforcement, etc. In those cases, the Department already takes advantage of as many grants as possible. “Operational Support” grants which provide unspecified funding for operating costs typically are not available to government agencies, and are extremely competitive regardless. There is almost no scenario where a police department can be funded entirely, or even in significant part, by grants.
Does Pierce Township Need Its Own Police Department?
Pierce Township’s residential population has grown by over 40% since 2007, however the Police Department’s funding and general size has remained static. In law enforcement statistics, violent crime is considered a good indicator of the total crime rate, as those incidents are more severe and are the most likely to be reported. In Pierce Township, violent crime has been trending upwards since a low in 2016, hitting its second-highest point since 2007 last year. The Police Department is also at its lowest staffing level in five years.
As the Township’s population continues to grow, there will only be a greater need for police services. Another aspect to consider is the commuter population, the amount of people that shop or travel in the Township, or those that work in the jurisdiction but live elsewhere. That number is very difficult to measure but is likely to only increase in the near future. A good indicator of this is the amount of traffic on roadways, such as Ohio Pike or US 52. Since 2007, has the congestion and amount of cars seemed to lessen or has it gotten worse?
Ultimately, that question is for the voters to decide. Pierce Township has had its own dedicated police force since at least 1962 and residents have reauthorized it many times since. The most recent FBI data available (2019) suggests that the Midwest average for police officers per 1,000 residents is 2.7, with a nationwide suburban average of 3.8. Currently, the Pierce Township Police Department averages 1.1 officers per 1,000 residents, less than half the size of comparable police agencies.
How Can I Get Involved?
The Secretary of State’s deadline for new voters to register for the November General Election is October 6th. To find information about your poling place, view a sample ballot, or order an absentee ballot please visit the Board of Elections.
If you would like to contribute financially to help offset the costs of advertising and other promotional materials, make checks payable to:
Citizens for Pierce Township Safety Services
c/o Cathy Jorgensen, Treasurer
743 Stonehill Run
Cincinnati, OH 45245
What Does the Pierce Township Police Department Do?
In 2024, Pierce Township officers were involved in 26,106 public encounters, wrote 1,432 reports, issued 325 citations, and made 209 arrests. On average, that’s 154 police encounters every day or an activity every 3 minutes. These metrics do not include many of the conversations, phone calls, or other casual contacts a police officer has throughout their day. As a rule, policing is typically divided between reactive and proactive responses.
Proactive measures are very difficult to codify in statistics. If a subject wants to commit a crime, the presence of a police officer passing on patrol or posted nearby may dissuade them. This preventative presence resulted in no criminal acts, therefore no measurable criminal figure was created. This is especially true for property crimes, such as burglaries, vehicle thefts, or robberies, where police presence prevents the possibility of these crimes being committed. The positive action of police officers often makes no statistical impact, and the absence of these numbers can sometimes indicate police effectiveness.
To account for this, Pierce Township officers regularly log their daily activity. These are reflected on the chart to the right as checks, patrols, requests, and visits. Most are generated by the officers while they work their patrol areas, recording where they are and what they see; others are generated by the public pre-emptively submitting their locations to be checked. Other proactive call types include traffic stops, suspicious vehicles or persons, and follow-ups. If you see a Pierce Township officer over the course of your day, they are probably working on something.
Reactive measures are the classic method of policing, where victims or witnesses call 911 and report a crime. Sometimes these crimes are in-progress, but usually they occurred hours or days in the past. In those situations, officers are working backwards from a known offense. These incidents are the majority of a detective’s case load and require teamwork with the initial reporting officer. The professional ability of police officers, their training, available equipment, and skillset cultivated by experience are what determine the outcome of those cases.
Effective police agencies must balance these two types of behavior. Too much proactivity slights victims, and too much reactivity creates victims. An effective police department must be properly funded and staffed to balance these needs. Without the passage of a levy, hard cuts will be made that will jeopardize Pierce Township’s ability to handle all types of criminal activity.