October 6, 2025 • 18 mins
Scott talks with the co-chair of the the Ohio property tax working group Bill Seitz about the changes that are being proposed to Ohio's property tax laws.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Don't want to be an American idiot. Scott's flown back
on seven hundred WLW. Governor Mike Dewin's Property Tax Reform
Working Group was tasked with coming up with a better system.
Let's face it, property taxes in Ohio have been a
mess for a while now. We've seen taxes rise anywhere
between what thirty to two hundred percent in some areas,
(00:20):
and that worries folks, especially seniors on fixed incomes, may
lose their People are actually worried about losing their homes
over it. The same time, we have to fund schools,
police fire ems, all those services. And by the way,
the day after these proposals got released, the Ohio Senate
voted to override Mike Dewina on this bill. Sites is
(00:41):
the co chair of the working group and joins the
shout now on seven hundred WWD former Green Township, Ohio
House Minority Speaker bill. This was when we talked about this,
I think a few months ago, when you were assigned
the task of co chairing this, this working group said this,
this probably could be one of the most difficult things
you've ever endeavored to do. You laid out twenty ideas
(01:03):
the Ohio Senate voted to override explain, first of all, Bill,
what does that mean and the reasoning behind it? And
is it simply just that you leaned, as the working
group leaned towards more the House bills and the House
proposals for the fixed than the Senate bills? And is
that all this is?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
No? No, no, no, not at all. No. No. Both
the House and the Senate have already passed the number
of things about the governor vichos, and now the House
and Senate are considering overriding the governor on some of
those beatos. The one that was overridden last week abolished
replacement levey le we we're.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Losing we're losing your cell a little bit there, Bill,
Can you hear me?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I got you, hear me, I got you?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Okay. They abolished the emergency, they abolished substitute, they abolished
replacement levees, and and and we didn't have too much
problem with that, because replacement levees confuse voters replace it
with what substitute levees confused voters substitute for what emergency
levees have been abused. There's emergency levees that have remained
(02:12):
in effect for over ten years. That's not an emergency,
so we don't have a problem with that. But we
did recommend that we redefine emergency levees, allow them to
exist for no more than five years, limit them to
school districts that are about to go into fiscal watch
or fistal emergency, and acts of God, you know, things
(02:35):
like floods and tornadoes. Restrict it strictly to that. That's
one thing we recommended. The other thing that the legislature
in their zeal to override the wine on this for
God is there is a law that passed in twenty thirteen.
I was very involved with it that says that we
will only pay the twelve and a half percent credit
(02:58):
on your property tax for levees that were passed before
twenty thirteen and levees that were renewed after that time.
Of those levees, well, when you abolish these levees, you're
cutting off the right of the folks to get there
twelve and a half percent on those levees that predated
(03:19):
twenty thirteen, and that results in a ninety six million
dollars state wide tax, which is not what the legislature
probably intended. So they're going to have to fix that,
I think down the road. But let me take a
step back spot, because people need to understand something. The
number one problem here is that real estate values have
(03:39):
greatly outstripped the general rate of inflation. Your wife is
in real estate. She knows that like the back of
her hand. And normally that's not much of a problem
because a nineteen seventy six law says that for most
voted levees, when a levee passes in all the millage
(04:01):
backs as values increase, so that the levee produces no
more money in the current year than it did in
the year in which it was originally passed. That's true
for most levees, but there are two kinds of property
tax levees that don't have that feature. One is, in
our constitution, each county gets ten mills of unvoted millage
(04:25):
to divide up among their schools, cities, township counties. That's
unvoted millage, and that does go up as property values increased.
The levee money goes up in lockstep with those valuation increases.
That's one one problem. The other problem is schools are
(04:47):
when they collect fewer than twenty mills of taxes for schools.
All of those mills under twenty mills grow in lockstep
with property value increases, and once you get over twenty mils,
none of the mills grow with inflation. So schools have
an incentive to try to stay below that twenty mils.
(05:09):
But and when they do again, all of that millage
grows with increasing property valuations. We in the House and
the Senate seem to be on pretty much the same
page about one good idea to deal with that, and
that is to say, when when property values increase at
a rate faster than the general rate of inflation, the
(05:32):
general rate of inflation will service a cap on the
extent to which those higher property values may be reflected
in your tax bill, so that if inflation is five percent,
the property night go up fifteen perca, they would be
capped at five per sack. That is a bill called
House Till one eighty six, and we endorsed that in
(05:52):
the form in which it existed in June. It hasn't
passed yet, but just a week or two ago they
mended it in the House and tried to reach back
and claw back from the schools one point seven billion
dollars that the schools had collected and spent over the
(06:13):
years twenty two, twenty three, twenty four and twenty five.
And we haven't taken a position on that, but obviously
that's posed of the grave degree of problem for the schools.
I mean, they lawfully collected the money, they lawfully spent
the money. Why are they being made to pay this
back to the property owners, even though the property owners
(06:33):
I'm sure would love it. So that is the fundamental problem.
Now you hit on something else that's very important. Senior
citizens in particular are having a hard time because their
house is paid for, they've got no kids in schools anymore,
they're on a fixed income, and they're being hit with
these property tax increases. Well, there's really only three things
(06:57):
that you can do to help those needing people. You
can either expand the existing state homestead exemption, which allows
folks to exempt part of their valuation from taxes. Or
you can come up with a tax deferral plan, which
some states do, which says you can defer payment of
(07:18):
some of those taxes until you die or until you
sell the home. Okay, that's the second thing you can
do to help those needing people. And then the third
thing you can do is pass something called a circuit breaker,
which says that when your property tax exceeds a specified
percentage of your income, you don't have to pay any
(07:40):
more than that.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Percentagetcha, Okay, Now, thirty.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
States have done a circuit breaker, Ohio has not. In
our recommendations, we recommended a modest expansion of the home
set exemption. We recommended initiation of a modest tax deferral program.
We also threw in a recommendation that when the state
feels like they can afford it, they should consider a
(08:06):
broader exemption of the homestead or expansion of the homestead exemption,
and they should consider adoption of a circuit breaker. The
state legislature, my friends and colleagues, and the legislature, they
don't want to spend any state money on solving this problem.
And their attitude is, Hey, we're paying the twelve and
a half percent credit on levi's the past prior to
(08:28):
twenty thirteen and renewals thereof, and we're paying for the
existing homestead exemption, and we're not getting any credits for
that from the voters, So why should we spend more
state money on it? Well, I understand that point, but
again I'm concerned about those senior citizens. And you can say, well,
let the county do it on their dime. Well, the
(08:49):
problem is not all counties in Ohio have the financial
whereboom to do that, right, That's why it should be
done at the state level. Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He is Bill sites on the show as Marcelonia on
seven hundred. Well, they're very complicated but important issue of
property tax reform. He is a co chair of the
working group test by the governor to come up with
a plan twenty main recommendations here and certainly can't get
to all twenty and all twenty and not all twenty
are not out in the weeds. The number of these are.
And we're talking about the important facets, the fact your
bottom line. You know, you mentioned seniors and okay, I
(09:19):
no seniors, fixed income and people are afraid they're going
to lose their home that they've raised, their family and
et cetera. But at the same time, it feels like
a lot of this comes at the expense of young
people with kids. We hear about seniors and fixed incomes.
We never hear about young people going, Hey, what about
some a couple that has to work two jobs or
more three or four jobs between the two of them,
and daycare costs. And you know, we look around the
(09:41):
country and wonder why we are not replacing old with young.
You know, young people are not having families and having
kids anymore, largely because they can't afford them. Doesn't this
further exacerbate that. I understand the need that seniors have,
but often in politics and we don't talk about younger families,
which we really need to drive the economic engine and
(10:01):
also support us an old age. If fewer people are
having kids, that's bad for seniors overall.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. Well, you know, you make a very good point,
but every time you try to expand the pool of
people who should be getting property tax relief, you're dramatically
increasing the cost. And those younger people do have the
ability still to work.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
That's a problem with subsidy, right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, you know, obviously, property taxes have been around
in Ohio since the eighteen thirty They account for twenty
three point nine billion dollars a year. All of that
goes to local government services. Only the state gets zero
from property taxes. And to abolish property taxes as there
is a move of what to do to a still
(10:49):
advised constitutional amendment to abolish them would mean we would
need a ten point two percent statewide flat income tax
if we wanted to replace property taxes income right or
a or a statewide sales tax rate of about twenty percent,
which is neither of those are remotely feasible. And so
(11:09):
people need to consider before you jump on the bandwagon
and say I don't want to pay any more property taxes. Right, well,
either you're going to put every local government out of business,
which is not a good idea. Your school's out of business,
or you're going to have to have some replacement source
of revenue that is probably worse than the property tax
(11:29):
that you're paying now. I mean, a twenty percent statewide
sales tax would kill the economy in Hamilton County. Everybody
would drive over the river to Kentucky to buy every share.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sure, absolutely absolutely. I will also point out there's other districts,
I know, Kings and many others are moving towards just
going hey, you know what, we're just gonna We're going
to propose a one percent or whatever the percentage is,
let's say, uh income tax, and you know that absolves
people who aren't working unless retirees are close to retirement
from paying that sharing that burden. So, and you know
(12:00):
in lou of this too. One of the things we're
looking at is just saying, okay, well, property taxes are
a mass, why don't we just get our money from
income taxes?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, schools, you know, and schools have the ability to
place before their voters and income tax. That's been around
for a number of years now, and a number of
school distis have done it. Perhaps that is a somewhat
viable for schools. But townships they have no ability to
do income tax. Libraries have no ability to do that.
The zoo is no ability to do that. Your mental
(12:29):
health and developmental disabilities services don't, your senior citizen services don't.
So the income tax for schools is a partial solution
and one that might be looked at because remember, we
have reduced the state income tax over the last twenty
five years from north of seven percent down to the
current level of two point seven five percent. We have
(12:53):
the lowest state income tax rate of any of our
sister states here in the Midwest. And so because state
income tax have gone down, maybe maybe the voters in
these school districts might buy it's propitious to have a
local income tax. Personally, I think income taxes are worth
(13:14):
some property taxes. But that's just me, okay, you know,
and we have to consider that it's not a complete
solution for the reasons I just gave so many jurisdictions
dependent on property tax cannot do an income tax, and frank,
they don't want to. We are doing township no interest
(13:35):
in doing an income tax when I was on that
board for seven years in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Bill Sides one. One final question here on the on
the Budget Commission powers. We talked about the Budget Commission
to come in and that they balance committee. They they
have the authority to reduce what are you calling unnecessary
excessive levees, uh with respecting voter intent, But these are
the local We talk about local control all the time.
This is the ultra localis definition of local control is
(14:01):
that voters approve these levies specifically because they trusted the
taxing entity's assessment of need. How do you balance that
with what's happening here?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, what we've done, Okay. The legislation that the General
Assembly passed said that the Budget Commission, consisting of the
county Treasurer, the county auditors, and the county prosecutor can
reduce the millage of any levee that they find to
be unnecessary or accessive. They never defined unnecessary, they never
defined accessive. That means you could have eighty eight different
(14:31):
standards across the eighty eight different counties. They also said
they also failed to say that the Commission has to
keep hands off at least for a period of time
after that levee is passed by the voters, because to
do otherwise is basically to flap the voters right in
the face saying you were too stupid to vote for
We're going to undo what you just voted for. And
(14:52):
so what we did on our task force is we
came up with a good type definition of unnecessary and
a good definition of excessive in both cases, provided by
our County Auditors Association statewide, and we said the Budget
Commission cannot reduce levees for the first five years after
(15:14):
they initially passed, or for the first two years in
the case of renewal. And so there'll be that poling
off period, because how wealth are you going to know
whether it's excessive or unnecessary until it plays out, see
what I'm saying. So we're trying to again, this is
an example spot of where we're trying to refine what
(15:34):
the legislature has done. We're not trying to say forget it,
don't do it. We're simply saying, there's going to be
a few bells and whistles, a few guardrails around these
new and expanded powers of three county wide officials to
exercise control over school levees and township levees and park
levees that they have nothing to do with. So you know,
(15:56):
we're just trying to balance that against the will of
the voters, is what we're trying.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And that that is indeed the billion dollar question because
something to listen, this is going man. There's a lot
of moving parts at bill sites laid out and eloquently
of course, as always too, but lots we don't understand.
And I'm hoping that gets sorted out during a debate
on both sides of this in the Senate of the House,
and the Governor's going to have a say in this
thing too. So what is the timeline before this shakes out?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, I know the House and Senate our team to
do something definitive before the end of the year. There
is nothing that can be done that would provide any
relief prior to the second half twenty twenty six property
tax bills. That's just a matter of timing. You can't
do anything. I would my focus would be how do
(16:43):
we fix the system going forward rather than trying to
recreate history by going backward. Yeah, and so you know,
I mean, is this a problem, yes, and we should
fix it going forward. And that was what our group recommended.
Mostly of our recommendation, we had a great group. It
was a county auditors, it was school superintendents, the county commissioners,
(17:07):
county treasurer, you know, we had the mayor, We had
a mayor in there, a couple of business people in there.
So it was a good balanced group of people that
actually are in charge of implementing the whole property tax system.
And so their expertise really was great and guided us
very very strongly in the work we did. We met
(17:29):
every week for two months, every Thursday, for at least
two hours at a time, and heard from a lot
of folks that got a lot of written testimony, a
lot of oral testimony, and did our best away through it.
On that very short timeline that Mike DeWine gave us.
He gave us till September thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, you and turn that in. What's going to happen
now is the great debate will continue here in pieces
of this and we'll get debated and I'm sure we'll
discuss this in the future too. But yeah, it's been
an interesting few months for you, I know, co chairing
this group. Anyway, he's built sites of Green Township. Thanks
again for coming on the show, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Happy to be with you. Better.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I'm working on that. You work on the property tax
how's that?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah? There you go? All right.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I gotta feel in my foot it's going to be
better before we figure out property taxes. That's your damn sure. Anyway, Well,
let's get a news update in. Did that confuse you?
Probably did. It's a lot going on there and a
lot of millages and uh clawbacks and levy structure changes
and words like unnecessary and excessive kind of makes your
head swim. But the good news is this will get
that parceled out in pieces and will debate each each
(18:40):
element of this at some point to figure out why
property taxes are so screwed up, and how we can
get some sanity back to what we pay Scott's Loan
Show seven hundred ww
Don't want to be an American idiot. Scott's flown back
on seven hundred WLW. Governor Mike Dewin's Property Tax Reform
Working Group was tasked with coming up with a better system.
Let's face it, property taxes in Ohio have been a
mess for a while now. We've seen taxes rise anywhere
between what thirty to two hundred percent in some areas,
(00:20):
and that worries folks, especially seniors on fixed incomes, may
lose their People are actually worried about losing their homes
over it. The same time, we have to fund schools,
police fire ems, all those services. And by the way,
the day after these proposals got released, the Ohio Senate
voted to override Mike Dewina on this bill. Sites is
(00:41):
the co chair of the working group and joins the
shout now on seven hundred WWD former Green Township, Ohio
House Minority Speaker bill. This was when we talked about this,
I think a few months ago, when you were assigned
the task of co chairing this, this working group said this,
this probably could be one of the most difficult things
you've ever endeavored to do. You laid out twenty ideas
(01:03):
the Ohio Senate voted to override explain, first of all, Bill,
what does that mean and the reasoning behind it? And
is it simply just that you leaned, as the working
group leaned towards more the House bills and the House
proposals for the fixed than the Senate bills? And is
that all this is?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
No? No, no, no, not at all. No. No. Both
the House and the Senate have already passed the number
of things about the governor vichos, and now the House
and Senate are considering overriding the governor on some of
those beatos. The one that was overridden last week abolished
replacement levey le we we're.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Losing we're losing your cell a little bit there, Bill,
Can you hear me?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:49):
I got you, hear me, I got you?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Okay. They abolished the emergency, they abolished substitute, they abolished
replacement levees, and and and we didn't have too much
problem with that, because replacement levees confuse voters replace it
with what substitute levees confused voters substitute for what emergency
levees have been abused. There's emergency levees that have remained
(02:12):
in effect for over ten years. That's not an emergency,
so we don't have a problem with that. But we
did recommend that we redefine emergency levees, allow them to
exist for no more than five years, limit them to
school districts that are about to go into fiscal watch
or fistal emergency, and acts of God, you know, things
(02:35):
like floods and tornadoes. Restrict it strictly to that. That's
one thing we recommended. The other thing that the legislature
in their zeal to override the wine on this for
God is there is a law that passed in twenty thirteen.
I was very involved with it that says that we
will only pay the twelve and a half percent credit
(02:58):
on your property tax for levees that were passed before
twenty thirteen and levees that were renewed after that time.
Of those levees, well, when you abolish these levees, you're
cutting off the right of the folks to get there
twelve and a half percent on those levees that predated
(03:19):
twenty thirteen, and that results in a ninety six million
dollars state wide tax, which is not what the legislature
probably intended. So they're going to have to fix that,
I think down the road. But let me take a
step back spot, because people need to understand something. The
number one problem here is that real estate values have
(03:39):
greatly outstripped the general rate of inflation. Your wife is
in real estate. She knows that like the back of
her hand. And normally that's not much of a problem
because a nineteen seventy six law says that for most
voted levees, when a levee passes in all the millage
(04:01):
backs as values increase, so that the levee produces no
more money in the current year than it did in
the year in which it was originally passed. That's true
for most levees, but there are two kinds of property
tax levees that don't have that feature. One is, in
our constitution, each county gets ten mills of unvoted millage
(04:25):
to divide up among their schools, cities, township counties. That's
unvoted millage, and that does go up as property values increased.
The levee money goes up in lockstep with those valuation increases.
That's one one problem. The other problem is schools are
(04:47):
when they collect fewer than twenty mills of taxes for schools.
All of those mills under twenty mills grow in lockstep
with property value increases, and once you get over twenty mils,
none of the mills grow with inflation. So schools have
an incentive to try to stay below that twenty mils.
(05:09):
But and when they do again, all of that millage
grows with increasing property valuations. We in the House and
the Senate seem to be on pretty much the same
page about one good idea to deal with that, and
that is to say, when when property values increase at
a rate faster than the general rate of inflation, the
(05:32):
general rate of inflation will service a cap on the
extent to which those higher property values may be reflected
in your tax bill, so that if inflation is five percent,
the property night go up fifteen perca, they would be
capped at five per sack. That is a bill called
House Till one eighty six, and we endorsed that in
(05:52):
the form in which it existed in June. It hasn't
passed yet, but just a week or two ago they
mended it in the House and tried to reach back
and claw back from the schools one point seven billion
dollars that the schools had collected and spent over the
(06:13):
years twenty two, twenty three, twenty four and twenty five.
And we haven't taken a position on that, but obviously
that's posed of the grave degree of problem for the schools.
I mean, they lawfully collected the money, they lawfully spent
the money. Why are they being made to pay this
back to the property owners, even though the property owners
(06:33):
I'm sure would love it. So that is the fundamental problem.
Now you hit on something else that's very important. Senior
citizens in particular are having a hard time because their
house is paid for, they've got no kids in schools anymore,
they're on a fixed income, and they're being hit with
these property tax increases. Well, there's really only three things
(06:57):
that you can do to help those needing people. You
can either expand the existing state homestead exemption, which allows
folks to exempt part of their valuation from taxes. Or
you can come up with a tax deferral plan, which
some states do, which says you can defer payment of
(07:18):
some of those taxes until you die or until you
sell the home. Okay, that's the second thing you can
do to help those needing people. And then the third
thing you can do is pass something called a circuit breaker,
which says that when your property tax exceeds a specified
percentage of your income, you don't have to pay any
(07:40):
more than that.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Percentagetcha, Okay, Now, thirty.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
States have done a circuit breaker, Ohio has not. In
our recommendations, we recommended a modest expansion of the home
set exemption. We recommended initiation of a modest tax deferral program.
We also threw in a recommendation that when the state
feels like they can afford it, they should consider a
(08:06):
broader exemption of the homestead or expansion of the homestead exemption,
and they should consider adoption of a circuit breaker. The
state legislature, my friends and colleagues, and the legislature, they
don't want to spend any state money on solving this problem.
And their attitude is, Hey, we're paying the twelve and
a half percent credit on levi's the past prior to
(08:28):
twenty thirteen and renewals thereof, and we're paying for the
existing homestead exemption, and we're not getting any credits for
that from the voters, So why should we spend more
state money on it? Well, I understand that point, but
again I'm concerned about those senior citizens. And you can say, well,
let the county do it on their dime. Well, the
(08:49):
problem is not all counties in Ohio have the financial
whereboom to do that, right, That's why it should be
done at the state level. Okay.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
He is Bill sites on the show as Marcelonia on
seven hundred. Well, they're very complicated but important issue of
property tax reform. He is a co chair of the
working group test by the governor to come up with
a plan twenty main recommendations here and certainly can't get
to all twenty and all twenty and not all twenty
are not out in the weeds. The number of these are.
And we're talking about the important facets, the fact your
bottom line. You know, you mentioned seniors and okay, I
(09:19):
no seniors, fixed income and people are afraid they're going
to lose their home that they've raised, their family and
et cetera. But at the same time, it feels like
a lot of this comes at the expense of young
people with kids. We hear about seniors and fixed incomes.
We never hear about young people going, Hey, what about
some a couple that has to work two jobs or
more three or four jobs between the two of them,
and daycare costs. And you know, we look around the
(09:41):
country and wonder why we are not replacing old with young.
You know, young people are not having families and having
kids anymore, largely because they can't afford them. Doesn't this
further exacerbate that. I understand the need that seniors have,
but often in politics and we don't talk about younger families,
which we really need to drive the economic engine and
(10:01):
also support us an old age. If fewer people are
having kids, that's bad for seniors overall.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah. Well, you know, you make a very good point,
but every time you try to expand the pool of
people who should be getting property tax relief, you're dramatically
increasing the cost. And those younger people do have the
ability still to work.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
That's a problem with subsidy, right, Okay.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
I mean, you know, obviously, property taxes have been around
in Ohio since the eighteen thirty They account for twenty
three point nine billion dollars a year. All of that
goes to local government services. Only the state gets zero
from property taxes. And to abolish property taxes as there
is a move of what to do to a still
(10:49):
advised constitutional amendment to abolish them would mean we would
need a ten point two percent statewide flat income tax
if we wanted to replace property taxes income right or
a or a statewide sales tax rate of about twenty percent,
which is neither of those are remotely feasible. And so
(11:09):
people need to consider before you jump on the bandwagon
and say I don't want to pay any more property taxes. Right, well,
either you're going to put every local government out of business,
which is not a good idea. Your school's out of business,
or you're going to have to have some replacement source
of revenue that is probably worse than the property tax
(11:29):
that you're paying now. I mean, a twenty percent statewide
sales tax would kill the economy in Hamilton County. Everybody
would drive over the river to Kentucky to buy every share.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sure, absolutely absolutely. I will also point out there's other districts,
I know, Kings and many others are moving towards just
going hey, you know what, we're just gonna We're going
to propose a one percent or whatever the percentage is,
let's say, uh income tax, and you know that absolves
people who aren't working unless retirees are close to retirement
from paying that sharing that burden. So, and you know
(12:00):
in lou of this too. One of the things we're
looking at is just saying, okay, well, property taxes are
a mass, why don't we just get our money from
income taxes?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, schools, you know, and schools have the ability to
place before their voters and income tax. That's been around
for a number of years now, and a number of
school distis have done it. Perhaps that is a somewhat
viable for schools. But townships they have no ability to
do income tax. Libraries have no ability to do that.
The zoo is no ability to do that. Your mental
(12:29):
health and developmental disabilities services don't, your senior citizen services don't.
So the income tax for schools is a partial solution
and one that might be looked at because remember, we
have reduced the state income tax over the last twenty
five years from north of seven percent down to the
current level of two point seven five percent. We have
(12:53):
the lowest state income tax rate of any of our
sister states here in the Midwest. And so because state
income tax have gone down, maybe maybe the voters in
these school districts might buy it's propitious to have a
local income tax. Personally, I think income taxes are worth
(13:14):
some property taxes. But that's just me, okay, you know,
and we have to consider that it's not a complete
solution for the reasons I just gave so many jurisdictions
dependent on property tax cannot do an income tax, and frank,
they don't want to. We are doing township no interest
(13:35):
in doing an income tax when I was on that
board for seven years in the nineties.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Bill Sides one. One final question here on the on
the Budget Commission powers. We talked about the Budget Commission
to come in and that they balance committee. They they
have the authority to reduce what are you calling unnecessary
excessive levees, uh with respecting voter intent, But these are
the local We talk about local control all the time.
This is the ultra localis definition of local control is
(14:01):
that voters approve these levies specifically because they trusted the
taxing entity's assessment of need. How do you balance that
with what's happening here?
Speaker 2 (14:08):
Well, what we've done, Okay. The legislation that the General
Assembly passed said that the Budget Commission, consisting of the
county Treasurer, the county auditors, and the county prosecutor can
reduce the millage of any levee that they find to
be unnecessary or accessive. They never defined unnecessary, they never
defined accessive. That means you could have eighty eight different
(14:31):
standards across the eighty eight different counties. They also said
they also failed to say that the Commission has to
keep hands off at least for a period of time
after that levee is passed by the voters, because to
do otherwise is basically to flap the voters right in
the face saying you were too stupid to vote for
We're going to undo what you just voted for. And
(14:52):
so what we did on our task force is we
came up with a good type definition of unnecessary and
a good definition of excessive in both cases, provided by
our County Auditors Association statewide, and we said the Budget
Commission cannot reduce levees for the first five years after
(15:14):
they initially passed, or for the first two years in
the case of renewal. And so there'll be that poling
off period, because how wealth are you going to know
whether it's excessive or unnecessary until it plays out, see
what I'm saying. So we're trying to again, this is
an example spot of where we're trying to refine what
(15:34):
the legislature has done. We're not trying to say forget it,
don't do it. We're simply saying, there's going to be
a few bells and whistles, a few guardrails around these
new and expanded powers of three county wide officials to
exercise control over school levees and township levees and park
levees that they have nothing to do with. So you know,
(15:56):
we're just trying to balance that against the will of
the voters, is what we're trying.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
And that that is indeed the billion dollar question because
something to listen, this is going man. There's a lot
of moving parts at bill sites laid out and eloquently
of course, as always too, but lots we don't understand.
And I'm hoping that gets sorted out during a debate
on both sides of this in the Senate of the House,
and the Governor's going to have a say in this
thing too. So what is the timeline before this shakes out?
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Well, I know the House and Senate our team to
do something definitive before the end of the year. There
is nothing that can be done that would provide any
relief prior to the second half twenty twenty six property
tax bills. That's just a matter of timing. You can't
do anything. I would my focus would be how do
(16:43):
we fix the system going forward rather than trying to
recreate history by going backward. Yeah, and so you know,
I mean, is this a problem, yes, and we should
fix it going forward. And that was what our group recommended.
Mostly of our recommendation, we had a great group. It
was a county auditors, it was school superintendents, the county commissioners,
(17:07):
county treasurer, you know, we had the mayor, We had
a mayor in there, a couple of business people in there.
So it was a good balanced group of people that
actually are in charge of implementing the whole property tax system.
And so their expertise really was great and guided us
very very strongly in the work we did. We met
(17:29):
every week for two months, every Thursday, for at least
two hours at a time, and heard from a lot
of folks that got a lot of written testimony, a
lot of oral testimony, and did our best away through it.
On that very short timeline that Mike DeWine gave us.
He gave us till September thirty.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yeah, you and turn that in. What's going to happen
now is the great debate will continue here in pieces
of this and we'll get debated and I'm sure we'll
discuss this in the future too. But yeah, it's been
an interesting few months for you, I know, co chairing
this group. Anyway, he's built sites of Green Township. Thanks
again for coming on the show, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Happy to be with you. Better.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
I'm working on that. You work on the property tax
how's that?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah? There you go? All right.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I gotta feel in my foot it's going to be
better before we figure out property taxes. That's your damn sure. Anyway, Well,
let's get a news update in. Did that confuse you?
Probably did. It's a lot going on there and a
lot of millages and uh clawbacks and levy structure changes
and words like unnecessary and excessive kind of makes your
head swim. But the good news is this will get
that parceled out in pieces and will debate each each
(18:40):
element of this at some point to figure out why
property taxes are so screwed up, and how we can
get some sanity back to what we pay Scott's Loan
Show seven hundred ww
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