In June, 84-year-old Phyllis Bambeck walked up to a podium in the Ohio Statehouse.
“Ohioans like me need help,” the retired Cleveland schoolteacher told a committee of state senators. “We have been – and are – responsible homeowners.”
Bambeck’s property tax bill has quadrupled over the last decade as investors have flocked to the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood on the city’s West Side. Now, she’s facing yet another tax hike as Cuyahoga County adjusts home values following a mass reappraisal.
“I do not know what I will do if my taxes go up so much that I can no longer afford to stay in the home that I have lived in and raised my family in for the last 50 years,” she said.
“It’s old and wrinkly like me,” Bambeck added. “But I love it.”
The General Assembly has the power to intervene – to blunt the impact of soaring home values on property taxes. Pending bills in the House and Senate would offer relief to vulnerable homeowners and, in at least one case, renters. But that legislation is sitting.