Ohio lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they hear a lot from constituents about property taxes. They say they haven’t ignored those concerns, and have introduced and discussed around 50 bills and ideas to reduce or change property tax laws. But only a few have passed, with time running out to consider the rest.
Before lawmakers took off on summer break, they passed a slew of bills, including one that provides some temporary property tax relief. Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) said it’s a one-time credit on the homestead exemption, which reduces property taxes for thousands of disabled and older Ohioans.
“Each homestead recipient will receive somewhere in the neighborhood of between $250 and $475 as a reduction on their January tax bill coming up at the end of this year,” Stewart said.
Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney (D-Westlake) noted that not all seniors or disabled Ohioans will get it.
"For those people who will receive it, this is going to be incredibly helpful,” Sweeney said. “But next year, because this money is one-time, they will still be in the same position."
Lawmakers have also passed bills that cap the growth of property taxes and change the way the property tax formula can be applied. And while those changes may help some, many homeowners say they still can’t afford their property tax bills.
A citizen-led plan to abolish property won’t be on the statewide ballot this year. The Committee to Abolish Property Taxes had to collect more than 414,000 valid signatures by the first of July. While group leaders won’t say how many signatures they have, they’ve said they are now aiming for next year’s ballot.
It’s easier for lawmakers to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. It takes three-fifths support in the House and Senate. A Republican lawmaker wants to do that in his plan to eliminate property taxes on owner-occupied homes and leave the commercial base intact. But Rep. Mark Hiner (R-Howard) said he knows there’s no appetite among his fellow lawmakers for his idea now.
“I don’t expect anything to happen soon. It’s a pretty drastic change in taxation law,” Hiner said. “And quite honestly, a change like that should move slowly. I don’t think it’s something that should be done quickly because every change you make has a consequence that you have to consider and figure out what it would do to the tax base.”
Hiner said he campaigned on the elimination of income taxes, which many Republicans say is their goal, but he said he now feels property taxes are a bigger problem.
Around two-thirds of property tax revenue collected goes to public schools. Sen. Andrew Brenner (R-Delaware) explained he wants to overhaul the way schools are funded by replacing local school property taxes with a single, statewide 20-mill property tax. His bill would also increase sales tax by 1.75%, bringing the total state sales tax to 7.5%. It would eliminate the EdChoice school voucher program and would allow all K-12 students to go to the school of their choice – public or private – with state dollars to follow them. Brenner’s bill hasn’t moved since it was introduced last year, but he’s ok with that.
“This was put out there as a concept to discuss school funding, discuss what do we want to do,” Brenner said. “We knew this bill wasn’t going to pass in this General Assembly but I wanted to put out an alternative.”
Other bipartisan ideas that haven’t moved have been repeatedly introduced, including a “circuit breaker” that gives a credit when a tax bill reaches a certain percentage of a homeowner’s income, and bills to expand the homestead tax exemption by raising income levels or tying the credit to inflation.
