Efforts to abolish or deeply reform property taxes are gaining momentum in multiple states — including Ohio — where impassioned debate has cited potential funding shortfalls for local services, seniors being prices out of homes and further effects on the housing market.
Howard Fleeter, an economist with the Ohio Education Policy Institute who has worked with the state General Assembly for more than 30 years, said data alone shows how essential the property tax is.
“I do public policy analysis, and I try my best to stick to the facts and let the facts speak for themselves,” Fleeter said. “In 2024, the total amount of property tax revenue raised was $23.9 billion. That is almost as much as the state sales tax and state income tax put together.
“When you think about the magnitude, no one would suggest that state government could run if you eliminated the top two revenue sources. So, the idea that people think that you could eliminate the property tax and nothing bad would happen in the state, it’s not supported by the data.”
Property tax distribution
Multiple Ohio Department of Taxation analyses and state summaries find that roughly two-thirds (60% to 68%) of property-tax dollars are directed to local K–12 education.
The rest is distributed among counties, municipalities, townships, libraries, park districts, fire/EMS, water/sewer districts and other local governments.
Fleeter said the revenue raised by property taxes funds the bedrock of Ohio’s local services.
“We also have countywide human services that are funded through property taxes,” he said. “You’re talking alcohol, drug addiction, mental health, developmental disabilities, children’s services, elderly services, health department services.
“These are basic human services. It’s not just schools, it’s not just libraries, it’s not just roads and police and fire and EMS.”
Burden shifted to homeowners
Fleeter cited that over the past 30 years, state policy changes have shifted more of the tax burden onto Ohio’s residential property owners.
Residential (homeowner and farm) dollars rose from representing a mid-50% range of the total property tax pool in 1999 to the high-60% to low-70% range by the 2010s and into the 2020s, state data shows.
The Ohio Education Policy Institute and other analysts report similar changes when examining the school portion of property taxes specifically.
“For school property taxes in 1975, 46% were paid by homeowners and farmers, and 54% were paid by businesses,” Fleeter said. “In 2024, 68% of school taxes are paid by homeowners and farmers, and 32% are paid by businesses. And that shift really accelerated since the mid-1990s.”
Fleeter pointed to deregulation of utilities and business-friendly tax changes as key drivers of the shift — and historically atypical increases in property values the last couple of years as another huge factor driving current frustration.
While he called abolishing the property tax “a terrible idea,” Fleeter acknowledged the frustration many Ohioans feel.
“I understand why people are frustrated with the level of taxes,” he said. “One of the reasons they’re frustrated is because the state has made policy changes that have shifted the burden more towards people and less towards businesses. They decided to do that.”
Fighting to end Ohio’s “illusion of homeownership”
An organization called Citizens for Property Tax Reform is pushing for a change to Ohio’s constitution.
Their proposal, as written, would completely eliminate property taxes and block the state from ever bringing them back.
Beth Blackmarr, a media representative for Citizens for Property Tax Reform, said observing Ohio senior citizens losing paid-off homes due to property taxes spurred her involvement.
“That’s just criminal, as far as I’m concerned,” she said. “It started with wanting to help the seniors, but then we rebranded as Citizens for Property Tax Reform because we said, ‘Seniors aren’t the only ones facing this. Young people can’t get housing any longer. They can’t buy homes any longer. It doesn’t make good sense.'”
Blackmarr said the status quo is causing increased disillusionment and cynicism among Ohioans of all ages.
“Homeownership is an illusion. We don’t really own our home,” she said. “We don’t own property. You can get sick, be in the hospital and miss some payments when you’re not able to do anything, and they’ll come and scoop up your home.
“Don’t pay your property taxes for a couple of years — then you’ll see who really owns your home.”
Data centers and business tax breaks
Blackmarr said the “cycle of life in Columbus” is clear.
“Developers donate to the politicians. Politicians give developers abatements and (tax increment funding) for 30 to 60 years. It’s crazy,” she said. “And then the taxpayers, the landowners, end up footing the bill.”
She pointed to a recent $39.1 million real estate tax abatement deal in her hometown of Lakewood, Ohio, as an example.
“Taxpayers get 60 of the 298 apartments that are supposed to be affordable rents for 15 years,” Blackmarr said. “That’s what we’re getting in return for our $39.1 million. So, this thing is costing taxpayers $651,000 per affordable apartment, and the $651,000 per affordable apartment is over two times the developer’s cost.”
The same, she argued, is happening with data centers.
“We have these data centers that are going in and sucking up all the electricity and lowering the water table for people [who] are on wells,” said Blackmarr. “It also doesn’t take any big number of employees to run those things, no big number of jobs.
“They’re basically self-sufficient, except for sucking up all the local resources anywhere they go. And we’re not getting anything in return for them, but they are getting tax abatements across the board.”
Skyrocketing payments
Blackmarr detailed the havoc that property tax increases have wreaked on her monthly housing expenses.
“In 2007, property tax made up 15% of my mortgage payment,” she said. “In 2025, it is closer to 50%, maybe 55% now that I got my new escrow shortfall. I’m paying more on the property tax than I am on the principal of my home.
“People who have paid their mortgages off are paying more for their property tax than they did for their original mortgage.”
Citizens for Property Tax Reform and other entities in favor of abolishment have proposed that funding for schools, municipalities and local services could be largely replaced by tax increases in other areas.
“What’s a more fair system? Look, if we take property tax off the board, do you realize how much money we’d save just in the system that props up that whole thing in and of itself?” she asked. “Billions of dollars. It costs billions of dollars to do the reassessments, to do all the collections.
“It could be sales tax, local income tax or other help for my city services. Put it on my water bill, I don’t care. But we cannot have people lose their home.”
Ohio Realtors seek middle ground
Scott Williams, CEO of Ohio Realtors, said he’s not opposed to the idea of property taxes, but acknowledged aspects of the system that are in need of fine tuning.
Earlier this year, Williams and his organization testified before the Ohio Senate Ways and Means Committee in favor of Senate Bill 66 — legislation aimed at curbing property tax hikes tied to rising property values.
“We worked on a couple of different pieces of legislation this General Assembly, some of which ended up being folded into the budget,” he said. “It’s not that property taxes are inherently bad, but Ohio has had a system in place since 1976 for controlling the rate of increase in property taxes.”
Williams pointed to the loophole that has expanded over time.
“Through wise tax planning and some changes in statute, more and more taxing entities have found a way to what we refer to as the 20-mill floor, where all the protections against inflationary or valuation increases to property taxes no longer apply. And that, for us, is really the rub.”
At present, 86% of Ohio’s 611 school districts are operating at the 20-mill floor, fueling tax escalation, Williams said.
In the early-1990s, Ohio’s school funding formula was found to be unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court due to over-reliance on local property taxes. In 2003, however, the court ended litigation.
Legislators have reworked the formula multiple times since then, but experts say the base issue of leaning too heavily on local property taxes has never been resolved.
Cost of replacing property taxes
Williams questioned proposals to shift to other forms of taxes to compensate for property tax abolishment.
“There are real-world implications of what that might mean in terms of sales tax increases or income tax increases to Ohioans, if that were all just to go away overnight,” he said. “I’ve heard significantly more than doubled (sales taxes). I think the number would be much larger than many people realize.”
A recent report published by Ohio Capital Journal includes a survey of 16 Ohio economists, asking if they believed replacing property taxes in Ohio with higher sales and income tax rates would help stabilize household tax payments.
Nine disagreed, one agreed and the rest said they weren’t sure.
“Homeowners are finally being priced out of their homes because of property tax increases,” Williams said. “All of that is simply solvable through a mechanism to control those inflationary growth factors — a circuit breaker approach.
“But a complete abolishment of property taxes, while saving homeowners money, I think in the long run, makes our communities undesirable.”
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