PAINESVILLE TOWNSHIP – Eliminating property taxes would create a nearly insurmountable funding challenge for local governments and prove catastrophic to continued public services, according to remarks made by local officials during a Wednesday, Feb. 25, presentation at Riverside High School.
The Committee to Abolish Ohio Property Taxes is engaged in a signature collection drive to place a constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ask voters whether or not to bar the collection of an estimated $24 billion in local real estate property taxes statewide.
“Property taxes are a lifetime debt that threaten home ownership security,” a committee press release stated. “Rising taxes can, and do, force families, especially seniors on fixed incomes, into foreclosure and homelessness. Ending property taxes means permanent ownership and the ability to pass homes on to future generations without fear of losing them to tax bills.”
However, several local officials said scrapping one of three major revenue sources for local services would mean the end of some and radical cuts to the rest for local and county governments.
Lake County Treasurer Michael Zuren offered a PowerPoint slideshow that began by detailing recent bills passed into law by the state that have lifted some of the burden carried posed to property owners, particularly in light of a decade of consecutive annual appreciation to home values leading to median property taxes rising 23 percent in Ohio from 2019 to 2023, exceeding the 21.6 percent national average, according to data from the Ohio House of Representatives.
HB 124 gives county auditors more oversight in determining property valuations and modifies the process for sales-assessment ratio studies. This bill gives auditors the primary role in deciding which recent home sales data is included to track market trends and set new values.
HB 129 requires fixed-sum levies, such as school emergency levies, to be included in the calculation of a school district’s 20-mill floor, which can help lower tax rates. This allowed districts to collect additional revenue from rising property values without new levies.
The application of tax-reduction measures, such as the effective rate created by HB 920, couldn’t cause a school district’s effective current-expense millage rate – both inside and outside combined – to fall below 20 mills. This is referred to as the 20-mill floor.
HB 186 established an inflation cap credit for school district property taxes, linking growth to the rate of inflation. It also phased out the general 10-percent non-business credit and gradually increases the owner-occupied credit for owners living in their homes. School taxes can’t rise more than inflation without a vote of the people – for the portions affected by this floor. In the event that they would, homeowners get a credit to bring it back down.
HB 309 expands the authority of county budget commissions, compromised of the county auditor, treasurer, prosecutor, to allow review and potentially reduce property tax rates if they determine collections are unnecessary or excessive, even for voter-approved levies.
HB 335 limits revenue increases from inside millage due to reappraisals or updates, capping the growth to the rate of inflation.
Inside millage – up to 10 mills, or 1 percent of assessed property value – is levied annually and shared between the political subdivisions overlapping every parcel of real estate. At a minimum, a parcel would be in three overlapping political subdivisions: a township, school district and county. These revenues may be allocated as the political subdivision wishes, for the most part.
These bills will lead to an average savings of about $128 in tax reductions for property owners during 2026, with cumulative benefits growing over time through capped increased and expanded credits, according to Zuren.
Dr. Stephen Thompson, CFO for Riverside Local Schools, argued these measures have already hit school districts hard, adding a recent move by the county commissioners to double the Homestead Exemption for seniors with income under $40,000 and doubling the Owner Occupancy Credit to 5 percent for all homeowners in 2025 to provide property tax relief.
These measures aimed to return roughly $14 million in taxes, with average senior benefits increasing to $1,000, according to an October 2025 county press release.
Thompson said average savings for residents during 2026 will amount to about $128, which most of them won’t notice over the course of 12 months.
“For us, it was a $1.3 million reduction in school funding,” he said.
Before the changes, Riverside Schools forecast cash reserves for fiscal 2029, but now projects a $4 million deficit.
“I would argue that it’s unamerican,” Thompson said. “How many taxes does the school collect that the voters haven’t approved for the schools? The answer is zero. So why do three county commissioners get to decide that your voice and your vote don’t matter. It was a headline – a political stunt that had very little impact on people’s bottom line, their pocket.”
The state’s budget as a percentage of Ohio’s gross domestic product in 1976 was 6.5 percent, according to Zuren, focused mostly on education and welfare spending. In 2025, it was 11.3 percent, attributable to expansions in the state’s share of Medicare spending in the 1990s and in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansion.
Health and human services have grown as a share from around 20 of state spending in earlier decades to over 40 percent recently, while education’s relative share has declined slightly amid other priorities, according to Zuren.
Income taxes in Ohio have declined from 9.165 percent in 1985, to a 2.75 percent flat rate in 2025, according to Zuren.
Rising costs for health and human services and tax cuts have meant a greater share of a shrinking pool of revenue has been focused on Medicaid spending, while the state has made significant cuts to its Local Government Fund and the Fair School Funding Plan, with a net effect of shifting an increasing share of the expense for local services and public education onto local taxpayers.
Dr. Christopher Rateno, Riverside Local Schools superintendent, said in in 1991 homeowners and farmers paid about 47 percent of the property taxes that funded their local school district. Changes in state spending priorities have increased that share to 70 percent.
“So, the burden has shifted more to the homeowner and the farmer and the businesses,” he said.
Two more decisions taken in Columbus, the elimination of the tangible personal property tax in 2005 and the elimination of the 12.5 percent property tax rollback, created a “huge shift” in funding local public schools from the state to local taxpayers, according to Rateno.
Rateno said he understands why people are unhappy with their property tax bills, given the recent rise in valuations and the knock-on effect that has had on property taxes. He told the audience everyone on the stage in in favor or gradual reforms with a safety mechanism to protect services now funded by property taxes.
In closing out his remarks, Rateno added that school levies are subject to a unique limit established in 1976 by HB 920, which caps school levies at the dollar figure established when they are originally approved by voters. This limit was imposed during a period of catastrophic inflation to limit collections by school districts in the event there are outsized increases in property valuations.
However, this has no exception over time, and creates an effective rate well below what was originally approved, freezing revenues at levels that are sometimes years or even decades old. He cited Riverside Local Schools’ rate of 55 mills, which has an effective rate closer to 20, he added.
Zuren said state funds can’t absorb what would amount to a $24 billion loss in revenues that counties, cities, village and townships use to fund vital services: law enforcement, fire, emergency medical, libraries, senior services and mental health and drug addiction services, among others.
While 60 percent – on average – of collected property taxes go toward school districts, the remaining $2 out of $5 funds everything from intervention services for children with intellectual disabilities, to road maintenance and repair, to in-home care and home-delivered meals for homebound seniors.
Eliminating property taxes could mean 50-percent cuts to police, fire and emergency medical services, larger class sizes at local schools, deferred maintenance for roads and bridges, water and sewer infrastructure, shuttered senior and community centers, closed libraries and fewer beds at drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers, just to name a few, according to Zuren.
John Patriarca, Concord Township fiscal officer, was in the audience and raised the likelihood that $60 billion in local and county debt statewide – in the form of short-term notes and long-term bonds issued to finance projects – would go into default without property tax revenues to fund debt service on $300 million in annual interest payments.
Default on public debt would have a near-apocalyptic effect on local, county and state credit ratings, skyrocketing the cost of future borrowing, according to Patriarca.
Chuck Hillier, Painesville Township trustee, said he sympathizes with residents in dealing with what seems a “never-ending series of new levies,” but that cuts in the Local Government Fund for services and state tax cuts had shifted the payment burden onto localities to pay for roads, bridges, police, firefighters, emergency medical services and more.
Eliminating property taxes would simply shift the burden onto one of the other two major revenues streams for local governments: sales and income taxes.
Hillier said he’d made some calculations and estimated Painesville Township would have to incorporate and implement a 13-percent income tax, which he characterized as “ridiculously high,” to offset a total loss of property tax revenues.
Sales tax would have to rise to between 18-21 percent to do the same, he added.
“Math is math,” Hillier said, adding property taxes are simply the reality of how local services are funded.
In addition to a sales tax increase, Zuren cited other possibilities for offsetting a loss of property tax revenues the state could look at, such as imposing a sales tax on food, increasing payroll taxes, new taxes on gross business receipts, luxury taxes or excise (sin) taxes.
No option matches the stability of property taxes, according to Zuren.
Thompson said he’s sympathetic to the plight of local property taxpayers, adding that inflation has affected costs for school districts as well.
“The idea that we’re going to abolish property tax at almost $24 billion?” he said. “On the surface, I could see how someone would support that. Who wouldn’t want to save $5,000 or whatever your tax bills this year? But the impacts are catastrophic.”
