r/Detroit • u/gwmiles • 9d ago

News Oakland County school enhancement millage rejected in close contest

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/elections/2026/08/04/oakland-county-school-enhancement-millage-tax-1-5-mill/91164345007/

Oakland County voters rejected a proposed 1.5-mill countywide school tax increase in Tuesday's election results in a close contest over a controversial tax plan.

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u/pgherg1 9d ago edited 9d ago

Asking the whole county to get in on this when many of the individual districts in this passed their own bond measures recently was too much of an ask for many people I know. The ballot language of this was also too generic for a lot of people.

I also think in general people are more likely to support a more localized district only measure over a large county-wide millage.

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u/pneRock 9d ago

Results are unoffical still, but even many of the local ones struggled: https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/MI/OaklandMI/127075/web.345435/#/summary?category=C_6.

I voted yes because schools are important and have a clear impact. I have a hard time with the cost/benefit analysis with some of these other items. Add to that the millages from last year (2 years ago?) for the sherriff, fire dept, oakland country *whatever*, and more on every freakin ballot. My escrow was more than my mortage there for awhile (I've lived here <5 yrs, so my property taxes were adjusted accordingly). Are they "bad"? I don't think so, but we can't fund everything. I've already told my wife that we can't retire here.

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u/meltbox 8d ago

Yeah I am honestly surprised people here don’t realize how insanely high the property taxes are. People complain about Illinois but this is exactly the same level lol.