By JAN McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
During the last two decades, Ohio has cut its share of funding for public schools, siphoned off money for private school vouchers, overridden the governor’s efforts to protect school funding, and is now proposing easing property tax burdens on Ohioans by shifting the pain to public schools – retroactively.
The state legislature has five bills in the works to take property tax revenue from schools and return it to taxpayers. The multiple proposals are dizzying for school districts.
“Sometimes they change week to week,” Bowling Green Superintendent Ted Haselman said. “It’s kind of discouraging.”
The latest proposal would cost Bowling Green City Schools $3.2 million over the next three years. Overall, Wood County schools are expected to lose up to $25 million over three years.
“That funding would either have to be replaced or we’d have to gut programs,” Haselman said.
The original Ohio House Bill 186 restricted property tax increases to the rate of inflation.
Currently, property tax rates on voter-approved levies get reduced as home values increase. The idea is voters shouldn’t pay more (without voting on it) just because their home became more valuable.
But those rate reductions have a hard stop at 20 mills, known as the 20-mill floor. That means school districts can’t get a windfall if valuations skyrocket – but districts can’t go below the 20-mill floor.
However, HB 186 would remove that floor – retroactively, capping at the rate of inflation.
If approved in its latest three-year retroactive form, the bill is expected to save Ohio property owners nearly $1.7 billion over the next three years, while stripping $1.7 billion from schools.
According to estimates, HB 186 would mean big losses to neighboring school districts – Otsego would lose $3.6 million, Eastwood $2.5 million, Elmwood $2.5 million, and Perrysburg $10.4 million.
During a meeting last week of public school officials, Otsego Superintendent Kevin O’Shea said while HB 186 is being promoted as property tax relief, it will have a “devastating impact” on small, rural school districts.
“If passed, Otsego is estimated to be cut $3 million over the next three years,” O’Shea said. “A lack of that funding is a death sentence to our programs, to our staffing, and all the opportunities for our students and staff that we give every single day.”
Property tax reforms
Haselman said superintendents across the state are open to tax reform measures.
“We’re not opposed to property tax reform – we really aren’t,” Haselman said.
But it makes no sense for the state to yank property tax revenue from school districts without having a plan in place to keep schools funded, he said.
“Schools did not invent the taxation system to fund our operations. We are simply living within the system created by the state to fund the great work that we do – playing the hand we are dealt.”
The state association for school superintendents is concerned about the financial effects on predominantly rural schools.
The Buckeye Association of School Administrators supported the original concept of HB 186 and believes it could have forestalled the property tax crisis of today had it been in place years ago. But amendments, particularly the retroactivity language, are cause for concern among school leaders.
The amended legislation would retroactively apply the inflation cap – cutting money already budgeted by districts.
For the majority of school districts across the state this is an actual cut in revenue moving forward – not a decrease on an increase in funding, but an actual cut for school districts.
According to the Buckeye Association of School Administrators, about half of Ohio’s 600-plus districts would receive less money. Rural school districts would be the most affected.
Many larger city school districts like Columbus and Cleveland do not lose any property tax revenue under the bill, even though their overall property tax per pupil is among the highest in the state (over $25,000 per pupil according to the latest Cupp Report). In addition, no revenue losses occur in high property valuation suburban districts such as Olentangy, Dublin and New Albany.
“School associations are all in opposition to this,” Haselman said.
“This has been in place for 50 years and it has worked,” he said of the 20-mill floor system.
Some legislators have suggested that the retroactive HB 186 could placate the organization pushing for an end to all property taxes in Ohio.
Citizens for Property Tax Reform — the grassroots group from Cuyahoga County — is attempting to put a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes entirely on the statewide November 2026 ballot.
But some superintendents have their doubts, and worry that nothing short of an end to property taxes will satisfy the movement.
The Ohio House of Representatives recently passed two bills regarding reform.
House Bill 309 allows county budget commissions to reduce property tax levies to avoid unnecessary or excessive collections, and House Bill 129 would include emergency and substitute levies into the calculation of a school district’s 20-mill floor.
Those votes came just one week after the Senate followed its colleagues in the House to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s veto of a budget provision to eliminate future replacement, emergency, and substitute levies at the local level.
“Those are items we are closely watching as well,” Haselman said. “They are constantly changing the target.”
Shifting expenses away from the state
This proposed “reform” comes after decades of Ohio legislators siphoning state funding from public schools.
In 2002 Ohio ranked 35th among the 50 states in the percentage of state revenue for K-12 education at 44.8%, which was 4.6 percentage points below the national average.
By 2023, Ohio’s ranking had fallen to 45th and Ohio’s state share of K-12 funding was 33.5% – 11.2 percentage points below the national average.
Over the same time frame, Ohio’s percentage of local funding increased from 49.5% to 53.1%, increasing Ohio’s ranking on local funding from 12th to 5th nationally. In 2002, Ohio’s local share of K-12 funding was 5.7 percentage points above the national average. However, by 2023 Ohio’s share of local funding had nearly doubled to 10.5 percentage points above the national average.
During that same 21-year period, Ohio’s spending levels per pupil dipped well below the national average.
In 2002, Ohio ranked 24th nationally in state revenue per pupil spent on K-12 education and was only slightly below the national average per pupil. However, by 2023, Ohio had fallen to 41st nationally and Ohio’s state revenue per pupil for K-12 education was $2,672 per pupil (29.5%) below the national average.
When local, state and federal revenues are combined, Ohio ranked 15th nationally in total K-12 revenue per pupil in 2002 and was roughly $800 per pupil above the national average. However, by 2023 Ohio had fallen to 23rd nationally and Ohio’s total revenue per pupil for K-12 education was more than $1,200 per pupil below the national average.
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