Commissioners Cindy Carpenter and Don Dixon last week said they are in favor of providing some form of property tax relief to taxpayers, the question is how much.
“It’s obvious the state’s not going to do anything,” Dixon said and later added. “We’ve been doing kind of a balancing act trying to wait to see what the state would do, they promised and promised and promised, now they set up this new committee and they have done nothing, so we have to do it ourselves.”
Commissioner T.C. Rogers was non-committal, saying he’s “thinking about it” and told the Journal-News “it sets a precedent.” He also noted the governor’s property tax working group has until Sept. 30 to offer reform recommendations and he wants to see what they offer.
What can be done
The board is considering adopting the only property tax reform measure in the biennium budget Gov. Mike DeWine didn’t veto, the so-called “piggyback” property tax provision. It gives county commissioners the authority to essentially double the state-funded Homestead exemptions and 2.5% owner-occupancy credits for eligible property owners using local dollars.
The Homestead exemption shields the first $28,000 of a property’s value from taxation and the homeowner must be at least 65 years old or permanently and totally disabled. The income threshold is $40,000.
If the commissioners went this route, it would cost $16 million combined for the Homestead and 2.5% rollbacks. The schools — they receive the bulk of property taxes — would take the biggest hit at $10.4 million, the county $2.1 million, the townships nearly $1.5 million and the remainder would be withheld from cities, villages, libraries, parks and vocational schools.
County Administrator Judi Boyko gave the commissioners another option. She said they could also forego collecting a portion of their inside millage — which totals roughly $25 million — that came as a result of the average 37% value hike last year.
It would save countywide taxpayers around $6.5 million.
She said based on the average countywide home value of $250,000, homeowners would save about $127 or $51 per $100,000, if they erase some inside millage.
If the board agrees to the piggyback tax break they can do it for both Homestead and the owner-occupancy credit, or pick and choose.
Carpenter said the owner-occupancy credit is “a big hit for the school districts, that’s probably not appealing to me.”
Dixon said “in some form or fashion I’m willing to do some reductions on inside millage.”
“My position would be we already rebated a lot more than the state of Ohio has done and we have worked hard to put the county in the position where we have the ability to be able to help our taxpayers,” Dixon said. “I am not in favor of selecting one or the other, treat everyone the same. My opinion is I would be on the side of doing tax cuts that far exceed what they’re recommending, while we work on a permanent solution to eliminate some of these increases, because we’re looking at up to 17%, 20% increase next year... Some relief is coming from us.”
Looking at the piggyback provision
County Auditor Nancy Nix and her team took a deep dive into the piggyback provision and estimated the doubled owner-occupancy credit would give relief to roughly 105,070 homeowners totaling $8.9 million. There are around 18,069 Homestead exemption recipients who would see an additional $7.2 million tax break.
There are 160,885 real estate parcels countywide and 135,788 are residential:
- West Chester Twp. has the most households receiving the owner-occupancy credit with 19,110
- Liberty Twp. has 14,216
Here’s the tally in the largest cities:
- Hamilton: 14,486
- Fairfield: 11,623
- Middletown: 10,788
The top three areas for Homestead exemption recipients are:
- Hamilton with 3,096
- Middletown has 2,596
- West Chester has 2,626.
Commissioner efforts
The commissioners have a history of giving tax breaks, rolling back the entire $18.5 million property tax collection in 2022. Last year they waived the estimated $6 million property tax windfall. When they approved the $126.3 million general fund budget in December they didn’t include a tax break due to some hefty capital projects and rising personnel costs.
Dixon told the Journal-News he is “exploring the idea” of rolling back the entire inside millage collection. He believes they can afford it because sales tax and other revenues are coming in higher than anticipated, “the numbers are coming in stronger, I’d sure like to do it.”
Carpenter told the Journal-News she’s willing to consider a rollback but, “I want to see all the numbers, I’m in favor of doing something but which mechanism we choose I don’t know until I see the numbers.”
He is also working with other county leaders to craft a ballot question that would ask for support for a constitutional amendment to cap property taxes. This effort rivals a movement already in progress by a group from Cuyahoga County that wants to erase property taxes altogether.
“It’s a work in progress, we’re narrowing down the constitutional amendment language and should have something in less than 30 days to give to the AG,” Dixon said.
Happening elsewhere
Cheryl Subler, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, said a few other counties are starting to take action as well, like Erie County which is also considering the piggyback option.
Summit County commissioners agreed last month to put a charter amendment question on their November ballot limiting inside millage increases to 3%. As a charter county, Summit has greater home rule authority.
“We’re seeing more commissioners work to ease the property tax burden on residents by doing roll backs of unvoted millage, which benefits everyone,” Subler said.
Former Ashtabula County auditor Rep. David Thomas, who was tagged by House leadership to lead property tax reform efforts and authored House Bill 335 that contained the piggyback measure, praised Butler County.
“That is tremendous news and Butler County would be once again leading the state as an example. I am sure we are going to get a number of them, it is just a matter of getting closer to the time frame and budgeting,” Thomas said. “This is the most direct ability to give taxpayers who need it most a decrease in their tax bill.”
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