TOLEDO — Homeowners may like the sound of lower property tax bills, but school and county officials are sounding the alarm that some reforms under consideration in Ohio could have a devastating impact on services.
The dust has yet to settle on several property tax changes that were included in the state’s biennial budget bill. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine exercised his veto power on the four such provisions in the bill, but the Ohio House of Representatives returned to Columbus for a special session July 21 so Republicans could attempt to override three of those vetoes.
These included:
- A measure that would eliminate local governments, school districts or other entities’ ability to propose replacement or emergency property taxes levies
- A measure that would require certain additional tax levies to be included when calculating the 20-mill floor calculation that the state takes into consideration when distributing school funding
- A measure that would grant county budget commissions the authority to reduce millage of voter-approved levies that the commission believes would lead to unnecessarily excessive revenue
Ultimately, Ohio House Republicans were only able to muster enough votes to override the first proposal in this list, and that move still requires the approval of 60 percent of the Ohio Senate…