For almost 40 years, the big metal slide at Shoup Park has been a Beavercreek rite of passage. If you’re a longtime resident, there’s a good chance that you’ve hauled yourself up the hill and then flown back down on a piece of wax paper.
This year the slide closed from age and erosion. Replacing the slide, the parks director said, “is not something our current budget can support,” so a donation drive was started to replace it.
Beavercreek is the largest city in Greene County, with about 48,000 residents, two regional shopping destinations and thousands of jobs. And we’re running a fundraiser for a slide.
This is a problem, indicative of the state of our city.
We’re not the city we were in 1980
In 1980, Beavercreek was mostly neighborhoods and farmland, and paying for everything with property taxes made sense.
Today about 23,000 people drive in every day to jobs at The Greene, Fairfield Commons, Soin Medical Center and tech firms, then return to their home cities. They use our roads, police, and snowplows, but because we have no income tax, they don’t pay a dime to the city that hosts their jobs: Beavercreek.
So who pays? You do. About $30 million of the city’s $53 million in 2025 revenue came from property taxes. When levies fail, as they so often do these days, services (like police, roads, parks) are cut.
One of only three
Beavercreek is one of only three Ohio cities with no income tax, yet we continue to fund ourselves like a small village. Recently, our neighbors who do have an income tax in place, have been doing the following:
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CentervilleCenterville rebuilt Stubbs Park with a giant amphitheater.BeavercreekBeavercreek voters, weary of more property taxes, rejected the 2023 levy to develop Spring House Park.
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SpringboroSpringboro has a classic, walkable downtown.BeavercreekBeavercreek has no downtown, and it’s rare to see a person outside a car. We have no budget to develop one.
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KetteringKettering runs a recreation complex with pools, an ice arena and a water park.BeavercreekBeavercreek’s senior center had to raise donations to replace a single van.
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FairbornFairborn opened a new $95 million high school in 2024.BeavercreekBeavercreek voters have rejected a new high school more than once, and some of our kids now learn in portable classrooms.
Vote For Issue 5 to have our non-resident workers pay their fair share
Something needs to change with how Beavercreek is funded. Voting for issue 5 on Nov. 3 puts an income tax in place for those who work in Beavercreek. To offset the new income, the city will permanently remove nine property tax levies for all Beavercreek city residents, cutting their property tax about 10% (roughly $233 a year per $100,000 of home value). The income tax does not collect revenue from retirees, or from residents who are already paying income tax in another city. About two-thirds of new revenue will be from people who work here but live elsewhere.
Let’s stop pretending we’re a no-stoplight town
Nobody gets excited about voting for a tax. But this one cuts your property tax, protects retirees, and finally asks the 23,000 people who use our city every workday to chip in.
A place our size shouldn’t need donations to keep a playground open. Vote FOR Issue 5 on Nov. 3, then grab some wax paper so we can all meet up at Shoup Park.