Beth Blackmarr, the spokesperson for the grassroots effort, said they gathered roughly 1,800 signatures — 1,000 are required by law — to get the petition on Yost’s desk and she believes they’ll need at least 500,000 names — accounting for potential flawed signatures — to put it on the ballot.
The constitutional amendment would “abolish taxes on real property” but for purposes of the ballot question doesn’t suggest another way to fund schools and other local services like fire and police. Blackmarr told this media outlet “it’s going to be either sales tax or income tax or some combination thereof” to replace the current revenue source.
She said it didn’t have to come to this, if state lawmakers had listened to their constituents and passed meaningful reform. She noted state legislators shouldn’t take this effort lightly.
“This should have been a no-brainer for the legislature, did they do it, no. We seniors have some time on our hands to devote to this kind of thing. The seniors are the last ones you want to mess with, we’ve got time and we vote. So pick your battles legislature,” she said adding other jurisdictions like New Jersey and Texas have implemented relief. “We can do it but it’s up to them. If they pass something meaningful, and I don’t mean breadcrumbs, I think people will be less likely to vote it in if we get it to the ballot. So it is an action of last resort.”
The general assembly has introduced 22 bills that touch property tax reform this year, 16 in the House and six in the Senate. A dozen are recycled ideas from the last two years when 23 bills were introduced, but only two measures became law, namely indexing the homestead exemption to inflation and a small measure for surviving spouses of disabled veterans.
Sen. Bill Blessing, Republican from Colerain Twp. and chair of the Ways and Mean Committee said eliminating property taxes is a “terrible proposal” and if the measure actually makes it to the ballot — the rules guiding ballot initiatives are quite arduous — he predicts it will “go down in flames.”
“Make no mistake, every township trustee, irrespective of party would come out in opposition to this, fiercely so, so would every school district, so would all of the labor organizations, so would the cities, so would the counties,” Blessing said. “Anybody involved with local government would come out guns blazing on something like this. In the end I think both political parties would wind up opposing this.”
He said eliminating property taxes would have a devastating impact on the entire governmental system in the state, entities that provide critical services to the residents.
“To totally end property taxes in Ohio means basically the loss of north of $22 billion worth of revenue to schools, libraries, local governments, park districts, all in the blink of an eye,” Blessing said. “So what happens to townships for example. Living in Colerain Twp. we don’t have income tax, we don’t have sales tax, we have 60,000 residents. What do we do, do we just sell all the township assets and say well we’re just nothing at this point. It’s just deeply, deeply irresponsible to think you can just snap your fingers and do that.”
Former Ashtabula County Auditor Rep. David Thomas, who has been tapped by the Republican leadership to spearhead property tax reform, told this media outlet without property taxes, “if we had a statewide model you would have roughly a tripling of either the income tax or the sales tax.”
According to state budget documents, property tax collections for 2023 totaled $22.6 billion. State and local income taxes last year totaled $13.8 billion and sales tax $18 billion.
He said if voters approve the ballot issue he would prefer local governments choose their own model according to their unique circumstances. For example, he said raising the sales tax in border areas like Butler County “could be much more harmful” because people can cross state lines to shop.
But given the fact that local entities do not have access to all available revenue streams it would likely require more county or state control. All local entities get property taxes, cities get income tax, counties collect sales taxes, none get all three.
“Essentially this would mean a much heavier state government and much more directed by Columbus to locals,” he said. “As opposed to local control of how revenue is generated.”
He said another “big unintended consequence is essentially a massive shift from what’s currently being paid for by utility companies, energy, industrial and commercial over to individuals and in some areas that means people will pay significantly more.”
Blackmarr said they understand there are risks with pushing this through, but inaction by the legislature is also not an viable option.
“As far as losing management of the dollars I don’t think that’s great, I don’t think that’s optimal, I would rather have that in my community,” she said. “But here we are, the cost of property taxes has become untenable. We’ve got people in Cuyahoga County getting pushed out of their homes, it’s heartbreaking.”
She said raising the Homestead exemption criteria would be a good start, “there’s a lot that they can do where they don’t have to move mountains to do it, changing the Homestead exemption, that’s not that big a deal.”
Blessing agreed, “the most effective would be a modest, means tested, state funded increase to the Homestead exemption, that I think would be dispositive of the issue” but the problem is his “colleagues are not wanting to spend a penny of state money.” The biggest roadblocks to reform have been a divide over “who pays and who benefits.”
There are four pending bills that address Homestead. The House budget proposal would provide an estimated $4 billion savings for taxpayers, it would force school districts to cut their cash carryover to 30%. The only other measure to really progress so far this year is eliminating replacement tax levies. It passed the House last month. Thomas says there are a handful of other bills that should reach the House floor this month.
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