Senate GOP works in the dark

Senate GOP works in the dark

Cleveland Plain Dealer: The Ohio Senate’s Republican majority has demonstrated once again its distaste for full, open debate of questionable measures.

Its rewrite of Ohio’s pending state budget bill folded into the budget an altogether separate bill (Senate Bill 52) to forbid school districts and local governments initiating appeals of property tax valuations.

Under current law, school districts and local governments can initiate appeals to Boards of Revision disputing tax values assigned to a parcel of real estate or a parcel’s classification as residential/agricultural vs. commercial/industrial.

Assessing a parcel below the value that the facts require deprives schools and local governments of tax revenues to which they’re entitled.

The bill does maintain the right of an owner of a property, or his or her spouse, to appeal property tax valuations.

And according to an analysis by Ohio’s nonpartisan Legislative Service Commission, the bill “might result in lower property tax valuations to school districts and other units of local governments.”