Frustration mounts as Ohio statehouse tackles property tax relief

Yahoo

07-02-2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The start of another year means lawmakers lay out their priorities and like the last two years, which yielded little relief, leaders said property tax relief is at the top of their lists, but some Ohioans are growing frustrated and worried.
'I just wanted to stay in my house in a quiet way,' central Ohio homeowner Janice Beaty said.
Beaty, 86, has owned her home for 45 years. Her husband died 10 years ago, so now she is living on a single fixed income of about $3,700 a month.
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'I am on Social Security,' she said. 'And they gave me an increase this year; $50 didn't go very far.'
With a fixed income, a combination of her pension and social security, her rising property taxes are a point of stress.
'I think it has gone up two or three times in the past few years,' she said. 'I managed to pay the taxes, the last taxes it got. But it's going to come up again.'
And that's not all she has to pay: she said things like car payments, new glasses, utilities, and everyday necessities stack up.
'I'm over 80 and not in a good position to go out and work anymore,' she said.
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Beaty said that like many of her friends, she gets offers to sell her home; sometimes, she even gets badgered.
'I'd get some money out of it, but I'd lose my house,' she said. 'Pictures on the wall of my kids, my grandkids, and other things that are family possessions.'
Even if Beaty sold, she said renting a place in a retirement community is out of her budget, so she is looking to state leaders, like Ohio House Finance Committee Chair Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) for help.
'We've got kind of a big a la carte menu on property taxes,' Stewart said.
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Right now, the Ohio House Finance Committee is hearing testimony on the state's two-year, multi-billion-dollar budget, but the version they are looking at as introduced by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, which is subject to change, does not have any property tax relief.
'I think the governor's budget probably assumes that we're going to take the lead in doing that,' Stewart said. 'Part of that for this process will be determining what can we what can we afford in the financial situation that we have, a lot of these proposals cost quite a bit of money, but I think there is an appetite to look at property taxes.'
Stewart said he 'expect(s) multiple members will prepare and offer amendments relating to property taxes, and if they do, we will give them a lot of consideration.'
Meanwhile, Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman (R-Lima) has a different idea. When Huffman was asked if he wanted to include relief in the budget, he said, 'I hope not.'
'Because often when everything gets shoved into a budget, we figure out later how it's interacting with each other,' Huffman said.
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Huffman also does not want one big bill. Lawmakers plan to introduce a series of bills, each one targeting a specific area that needs to be addressed.
'A giant bill has so many complex problems in it, there will be something in it that everybody dislikes,' he said. 'So, let's look at this problem and have people understand why it is a difficult question.'
Huffman said it is a 'preferred method' to keep property taxes both separate from the budget, which has a July 1 deadline to pass, and tackle each issue one by one.
'This problem with property taxes has been created over decades,' Huffman said. 'The concept is we are going to peel the onion a little bit at a time is single issue single bill.'
The series of property tax bills that Huffman is talking about will be introduced within the next several weeks.
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