Geauga Park District Levy Renewal Would Decrease Tax

Geauga County residents going to the ballot box this November will vote on a levy renewal to fund the Geauga Park District. But this time around, the district is asking for a decrease in its millage.

The levy would cost a homeowner $22.52 a year on a $100,000 property, a reduction of $2.50.

Geauga Park District Executive Director John Oros says the park system could afford to give back to taxpayers because it has been saving money by focusing its mission on natural areas.

“We do have a few things like a high ropes course, for example, but our parks are largely natural areas — 70-plus miles of hiking trails, naturalist programs,” Oros says. “We don’t require as many staff to maintain things like baseball fields or softball fields or big recreational areas. So we don’t have some of the overhead that perhaps big municipalities might have in parks and recreation programs.”

If passed, the 20-year levy would generate more than $2.4 million annually for the park district, a reduction of about $270,000 a year.

In deciding on its decreased levy proposal, Oros says the district factored in cost projections for future efforts, including the recent purchase of the 180-acre Veterans Legacy Woods — the site of a former golf course in Newberry Township — and next year's opening of Welton’s Gorge, known as “Geauga’s Little Grand Canyon.”

“Our park development projects are pretty small — things like lodges, shelters, parking areas. We really concentrate on trails,” Oros says. “We can keep our overhead down with our trail construction. We have a small in-house construction crew that does a phenomenal job constructing trails. So we still are planning for growth.”

The park district is funded by three separate levies. Oros says the board will reassess their financial situation when the next levy is set to expire in 2025.

In 2018, the Geauga Park District counted more than 370,000 visitors to its 25 open parks and preserves.