Court decides school property-tax issue

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The state Supreme Court said Tuesday that a property-tax exemption for public schools does not extend to property leased to a school for profit, a decision that an advocate says could be catastrophic for charter schools.

The ruling reverses a state Board of Tax Appeals decision involving a $275,000-a-year lease by a nonprofit group operating the Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy.

The Anderson/Maltbie Partnership, also referred to as AMP, leased property to the charter-school group and asked in 2002 that a state exemption that applies to “public schoolhouses” be applied retroactively to 1999 for the property.

The court cited an 1874 Supreme Court decision in ruling that the exemption applies to private property only if it supports education “without any view to profit.”

“By seeking to exempt a commercial office building that is leased to the school for profit, AMP seeks a broader exemption, an application that we reject,” said the unanimous ruling written by Justice Judith Lanzinger.

Charter schools, or community schools, are publicly funded and generally operated by nonprofit groups or for-profit management companies.