Inside Story

Inside Story

Behind the scenes at The Dispatch and in the newspaper industry

An easy way to calculate costs of levies

A reader asked why we use a $100,000 home as the example when writing stories about how much levies will cost, if passed. 

This came up in the context of the Columbus City Schools levy on the Nov. 5 ballot. In reporting on the levy, we state that the levy will add $315 to a $100,000 property if approved.

The $100,000 figure is used because it's a calculation that can be recalculated for other values. For instance, a person with a $200,000 home simply doubles the cost. Someone with a $50,000 property cuts it in half.

It's a fairly simple way of helping people understand the cost of the levy.

If you want to be precise, visit our interactive voters guide and plug in your property value for the school levy or any levy. You will also see everything on your ballot, based on your address.

And fear not: We would not and cannot track anything you type in to the system. What you look at and what you type is private. We only know how many pages people looked at on their ballots (pageviews).