Are rising property taxes due to recent county property reappraisals making it harder for school districts to get levies passed?
The NEO Voter Voices survey commissioned this fall by Ideastream Public Media, WKYC and Signal Cleveland seems to suggest so.
A majority of the 614 Northeast Ohio voters – 50.7% - said recent property assessments are making it less likely for them to vote on tax levies. 34.8% said it does not affect their vote, while 14.4% said it actually made them more likely to vote for a levy. Forty-one percent of Democrat-identified survey participants said they were less likely to vote for levies due to rising property taxes, compared to 58% of Republicans and 53% of Independents.
With dozens of school levies on the ballot this November and property reappraisals finishing up in Northeast Ohio counties like Cuyahoga, Erie, Lake and Stark this year, Ideastream reached out to survey participants and other local residents to get their take.
Melissa Nida, a Mansfield, Ohio resident voted early and voted “no” on any levies seeking property tax increases this October. She cited the high price of goods as a reason why.
“I don't want to have any more taxes, so I'm not going to vote for anything that's going to raise taxes regardless of what it is,” she said.
Mansfield City School District has a 1%, five-year income tax as well as a 5.6-mill, five-year new levy on the ballot to help fund operations.
Elsewhere in Northeast Ohio, Republicans in Strongsville with the group Strongsville GOP have used the group’s PAC to send out mailers advocating for a “no” vote on the school district’s levy attempt in November. Shannon Burns, president of the executive committee for Strongsville GOP, said the district is already going to receive a boost in tax proceeds from the sexennial property reappraisal in Cuyahoga County, set to bring in an estimated $2.4 million.
Burns said his organization thinks the school district is doing a good job educating students, but his group disagrees with the district seeking more money at a time when taxes are already increasing, and it has more than $50 million in savings.
“Every one of these local businesses could be doing so much better if that $51 million was actually operating in the Strongsville economy instead of sitting in a government bank account not being used,” he said.
Other residents have said they’re willing to vote for school levies, despite rising costs from inflation and increases in taxes due to county property reappraisals. Eric Kraus, a single father of one, who lives in Brooklyn and took the Ideastream survey, said he doesn’t mind paying more in property taxes to support his school district. Brooklyn City Schools’ last levy attempt narrowly passed in the spring.
“I want them to have the same resources I had growing up,” Kraus explained. “That shows just because you're not rich doesn't mean you're not worth something. So putting an instrument in her hand or letting them play a sport, that helps their self esteem go up.
Candy Kelly, an Akron resident who also took the survey, is a retiree who said she is a strong proponent of supporting public schools. Summit County’s property reappraisal was conducted last year, resulting in high property taxes for some starting this year, but she said she herself hadn’t noticed a jump in her property taxes.
She said she voted early, and voted “yes” on Akron Public Schools’ combined operating levy and bond issue.
“I think that the schools need to be funded properly, and especially now when we seem to be losing public school funds, because some people believe that we should fund charter schools and parochial schools and everything else, which I don't agree with,” she said. “ I think that tax dollars … should be going toward the public schools.”
More than half of the school levies in Ohio on the ballot as part of the March 2024 primary election this year failed; and just 17% of schools’ request for new tax money were approved.
Several advocates with local levy campaigns at the time suggested inflation, voter apathy and even political polarization could have been factors in increasing numbers of levies failing.
Howard Fleeter, an expert on Ohio school funding and tax laws, has previously told Ideastream that Ohioans vote more on school levies than “any other state,” and said some voters have “levy fatigue.” That’s partly due to Ohio House Bill 920, which typically does not allow districts to collect further revenue from levies when property values increase; supporters of HB920 say it’s meant to cut down on the number of “unvoted” tax increases property owners face.
