“Imagine this, you know we can put a levy on the ballot and it can pass and then it can go on for 20 years, 50 years, 100 years it goes on and on and on, it’s like the Energizer bunny of taxes,” Click told the committee. “People don’t get a chance to weigh in on that. We’re not saying those taxes are bad, they might be good, but each generation deserves the right to say this is what my taxes are going for, I approve it or I disapprove it.”
The bill would erase all existing continuing levies by 2030. Continuing levies that are repaying debt can remain in effect until the obligation is satisfied. Taxing bodies would be allowed to ask voters to renew the various funding streams for a fixed number of years.
Willis told the committee they need to ensure tax-funded programs are bringing value to the people who pay for them and that they don’t exist, “simply because they have been placed on autopilot.”
“This legislation does not target essential services, nor does it seek to disrupt effective programs. Rather, it provides taxpayers with something they rightly expect, regular evaluation, measurable outcomes, and deliberate decision-making when public dollars are involved,” Willis said. “By requiring intentional legislative action, we create opportunities to identify waste, improve performance, and align spending with today’s priorities rather than yesterday’s assumptions.”
Most levies permanent
With the number of tax requests that seem to populate nearly every election ballot, it is notable how many permanent property tax levies are on the books in southwest Ohio. This news outlet examined the voted levy count — this does not include inside millage, bond or income tax obligations — and in the six county area, there are roughly 1,070 tax levies and 743, or nearly 70%, are permanent.
Here is the tally of total levies and how many are permanent by county: Butler: 173 (129), Clark: 162 (60), Greene: 206 (117), Miami: 77 (73), Montgomery: 302 (232) and Warren: 150 (132).
When this news outlet mentioned the large number of continuous levies on the books and how difficult it might be to replace them all with fixed rate levies by the 2029 deadline — especially in this anti-tax climate — Click said they might need to rework the bill.
“If people come to us with some reasonable alternatives, that still follow the spirit of the bill, you know to say listen we have 500 levies can we space this out or something like that,” he said. “I want to hear an exact proposal but I’m open to any amendments that make sense.”
Democratic Rep. Dan Troy from Willowick, who has been pushing for property tax reform, found another potential flaw in the proposed plan because it would erase the 12.5% property tax rollbacks that only apply to levies passed prior to 2013 when the benefit was abolished.
Every property owner used to get a state-paid 10% rollback and owner-occupied properties received an additional 2.5%. As part of the property tax reform push last year lawmakers adjusted the pre-2013 rollbacks by increasing the 2.5% owner occupancy credit to 15.38% over four years by phasing out the 10% non-business credit.
Troy asked when the various entities go to the ballot to restore their funding with fixed levies, if they can amend H.B. 420 to “make sure they continue to get that property tax help from the state of Ohio because the law right now says if it becomes a new levy you get nothing.”
Click thanked Troy for “catching that” and said he is willing to consider amendments that would protect the rollbacks.
Typically fixed rate levies are good for five, sometimes 10 years and Rep. Jack Daniels, R-New Franklin asked if they can consider modifying the time frame for the fixed levies, because five years is “a little bit short.”
“Not extending the 10-year time frame but if we get rid of the permanent ones, can we get rid of the really short ones that I think give voters fatigue for not really a good reason,” he said. “I think constantly coming to the ballot, they’re not upset because the school is doing a bad job, or the fire department or police department is, they’re upset because every time they come in to vote they’ve got another levy to vote for.”
Click once again said he is open to consider anything that could improve the bill.
County auditors have been at the forefront of the property tax reform movement and are now dealing with the measures— like credits some taxpayers will receive on their second half tax bills for outsized bills they previously paid — the legislature passed last year.
Warren County Auditor Matt Nolan, who is the past president of the County Auditor’s Association of Ohio, said erasing existing levies “seems pretty undemocratic” and in his experience is a solution without a problem, “I can’t point to one levy in Warren County that the voters don’t know it exists and don’t know what it’s for.”
“What they’re saying doesn’t line up with reality, it could be there are counties that that’s not the case but they often bring these things up and when we ask for specific examples we get one or we get none.” he said. “When you’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of levies across the state, if there is one bad actor let’s fix that bad actor let’s not create another level of bureaucracy that’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars every year when you put these levies on, the work that goes into them, the work that’s entailed them to fix something you can’t point to.”
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