Approval rates of local school bond and tax elections (2010)
| 2010 Local Ballot Measures |
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| Election dates |
| Measures on the ballot |
| School bond & tax approval rates (Part 1) • (Part 2) |
| Local measure analysis |
In order to gauge approval ratings for school issues, the calendar year was split into two parts to see how well school issues fared during the first half and second half of the year. The first part of the year covered January through July and the second part covered July through December. The states which were followed in detail are Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. See Balltopedia's county evaluation study for how well the eleven state's counties report election information online.
However, it must be noted that in some states, although detailed coverage of local measures is not available, some times results are available in state government databases or databases provided by non-government websites. In such cases, we supplement our statistics with the additional information in order to provide a better picture of local measure approval ratings. Additional states in the study include Iowa, New Mexico, New Jersey and Texas.
The results
Overall approval of school issues in the first half of the year was at 76.2% while in the second half of the year the approval dropped to 52.6%. The first study highlighted additional states which had databases of total school issues for the first part of the year. Those states included Iowa, New Mexico, New Jersey and Texas. With those additional states added, the adjusted overall approval for the second half of the year study was 71.3%. Combining both studies' totals results gives an approval rating of 63.7% for school issues for the entire year of 2010.
The table below breaks down votes into bonds and taxes and combines the totals for the entire year of 2010.
| Type of school finance measure | # of elections 2010 | # of approvals 2010 | % approved 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bonds | 331 | 220 | 60.1% |
| Taxes, tax levies | 184 | 495 | 56.97% |
| Totals: | 515 | 715 | 41.8% |
Overall totals
The table below features the overall school bond and tax results by state. A total of 15 states were included in the study: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
|
Legend Winning percentage above 70% Winning percentage below 50% |
| State | Approved | Defeated | % approved |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arizona | 32 | 31 | 51% |
| California | 43 | 31 | 58% |
| Colorado | 14 | 6 | 70% |
| Florida | 16 | 9 | 64% |
| Iowa | 8 | 1 | 89% |
| Illinois | 12 | 18 | 40% |
| Michigan | 115 | 40 | 74% |
| Missouri | 39 | 16 | 71% |
| New Mexico | 10 | 0 | 100% |
| New Jersey | 14 | 13 | 52% |
| Ohio | 198 | 191 | 51% |
| Oregon | 7 | 6 | 54% |
| Texas | 45 | 33 | 58% |
| Washington | 185 | 23 | 89% |
| Wisconsin | 62 | 60 | 51% |
| Totals: | 800 | 478 | 62.6% |
See also
- Local ballot measure elections in 2010
- School bond and tax elections in 2010
- Where to find information about local school bond and tax elections
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