The House concurred late Wednesday night with several changes the Senate made late, including increasing the 2.5% owner occupied tax rollback to 15.38% over four years by eliminating the 10% nonbusiness tax credit.
Here’s the tax savings breakdown according to legislative service estimates:
- House Bill 129 revises the school funding formula calculation costing school districts roughly $609 million in lost revenue over three years.
- House Bill 186 caps tax increases in 20-mill floor school districts to the rate of inflation, gives a tax credit to homeowners who paid windfalls after value adjustments and now includes the boosted owner-occupied tax rollback. Tax relief amounts to $2.47 billion over three years.
- House Bill 335 limits inside millage increases for all taxing bodies to the inflation rate producing an estimated revenue loss of $620 million to $763 million over three years.
- House Bill 309 gives local budget commissions more power to rein in unnecessary spending, cost savings can’t be estimated.
The bills now go to Gov. Mike DeWine. The last time lawmakers attempted tax reform — within the framework of the biennium budget — the governor vetoed all but one measure. He said the measures could harm schools and children and set up his own property tax working group to examine the problem. The newly passed school funding tweak and budget commission provisions were among the vetoes.
This news outlet asked DeWine’s spokesman Dan Tierney how the governor feels about these bills, which have gone through numerous amendments and hearings in both chambers. Prior to the Senate amendments, he said assuming the language is as “advertised” the bills will likely be signed. He said school leaders were able “to be a part of discussion” through the working group so things are a bit different this time around.
“An argument could have been previously that schools could not plan for what the budget put in place,” he said. “Now if the legislature does take action, there has been input from schools and we can say that they could have the opportunity to plan for this.”
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