“I think we need to have a serious conversation about whether there’s an overall relief package that could be included if we were given the opportunity,” McColley said. “I think what we did was largely forward-looking, but, it still didn’t address the issue of the (tax) spikes that are already kind of baked into the system in some fashion or another right now.”
McColley is the running mate of Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican candidate for governor who has the endorsement of President Donald Trump and the Ohio GOP, alongside a massive campaign cache.
His comments Tuesday point to a potential break in thinking from his counterpart, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, who did not add his own opinion on the property tax question Tuesday.
State Rep. David Thomas, R-Ashtabula, a former county auditor whom Huffman picked to lead most of the chamber’s property tax reforms, told this outlet Wednesday that he was given a directive that makes a direct fiscal relief package a no-go.
“I can only say that the guardrail I’ve been given with my reforms is: ‘No new or extra spending,’” Thomas said in an interview.
The problem, Thomas was told, must be fixed through policy, not spending. He said “actual, true tax reform” means taxpayers paying less.
“If we’re taking tax money from one side of the taxpayer’s pocket to then give it to his other pocket, you’re not actually helping him,” Thomas said. “Really, to give relief, you decrease taxes. You don’t take from one taxpayer and give to the other.”
Thomas highlighted House Bill 186, which he said will cut taxes owed by property tax payers by half a billion dollars starting in the second half of this year.
“So, there’s one cut right there that responds directly to the spikes that have happened over the past five years,” Thomas said.
McColley referred to the same bill as “a forward-looking measure not really addressing, in some ways, the damage that has already been done.”
“There needs to be a conversation about the large spikes and the ensuing windfalls in some cases that were experienced, down the line,” McColley said. “Is there a reason to potentially roll some of that back in the form of relief?”
McColley didn’t add details of how he’d envisage such a package. But, any windfall that resulted from increased property taxes is accrued at a local level, given that the state government does not make a dime off property taxes.
The biggest chunk of property taxes, Thomas said, goes to local school districts. Other property tax beneficiaries include conservation districts, police, fire and EMS services, libraries, parks, and many other public services — and the state has limited control over what any of those groups do with their funding.
Thomas, when asked what he’d think about a plan to directly reimburse property tax payers with state funds, said he’d have to see the details of such a plan before commenting on it.
“I can’t really speak for our chamber in terms of what that would look like if the Senate sent over something that spent a billion dollars, for example,” Thomas said. “That’s above my pay grade.”
In the background of all lawmakers’ considerations on property taxes is a citizen-led effort to ban property taxes altogether by way of an amendment to the Ohio Constitution.
The group behind the proposal has expressed confidence in getting it on the ballot this November. If they do, and if it is approved by a simple majority of voters, the measure would eliminate the property tax problem altogether for taxpayers, while decimating funding for local governments.
In its contingency planning, the state has estimated it would need to increase income tax up to 11% and sales tax up to 18%, potentially, in order to make up for the yearly $24 billion void created by axing property taxes altogether.
“We would be in a huge crisis in the state of Ohio,” DeWine said a month ago.
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Avery Kreemer can be reached at 614-981-1422, on X, via email, or you can drop him a comment/tip with the survey below.
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