The Ohio House meets at 11 this morning to take up three of Gov. Mike DeWine’s 67 line-item budget vetoes. DeWine vetoed allowing county budget commissions to reduce voter-approved levies, requiring certain levies to be used when calculating the effective tax rate, and limiting districts’ power to ask for emergency levies.
A three-fifths majority, or 60 votes, is needed to override. The budget passed with 59 votes.
"There's a tremendous amount of pressure on our members right now from those who are benefiting, frankly, from these unvoted windfalls in property tax revenue to our local government," said Rep. David Thomas (R-Jefferson), who's sponsored several proposals on property tax law changes. "There is a lot of push from these folks to not override and our members are definitely feeling it, but I believe we have the votes."
Minority Leader Dani Isaacsohn (D-Cincinnati) said Republicans shouldn’t count on any votes from the Democratic caucus, which he said is committed to using state resources to help Ohioan live their "fullest and best lives".
"That means affordable childcare, access to housing they can afford, great schools to send their kids, and being able to age with dignity and access to health care. This budget didn't do that. These veto overrides are not going to help," Isaacsohn said. "I think we're pretty united in feeling like these veto overrides are not what's needed to help the people of Ohio right now."
The Senate hasn’t set a date for an override session. A three-fifths majority means 20 of 24 Republican senators need to vote for the overrides. The budget passed the Senate with 23 GOP votes.
"The property tax reform was one that I think most of us were very disappointed that it got vetoed, because it's such an important issue to our taxpayers around the state right now," said Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland).
He added that what was in the budget bill "is not the final solution. It is not going to solve all of the problems. But when it comes to improved transparency and providing a lot more local control in authorization to deal with tax levies and property tax issues, I think that would have been a great start. And that's what we're looking to reestablish in any veto overrides."
But Sen. Bill Blessing (R-Colerain Twp.) said in an override session he would be a "no" vote, as he was in the budget vote last month.
"These three proposals are, to my knowledge, not going to impact anybody right out of the gate," Blessing said. He added that if that happens, "people are going to clamor for more, which is going to lead to more policy changes on this. I'm just worried that we start shifting away from property taxation to, for example, sales taxation, which is much more regressive. And it's just going to lead to a place that people really don't like."
There's one other property tax related veto that hasn't been set for an override vote: on the provision that would limit school districts to carrying over 40% of their operating budgets with collected property tax revenue, with the rest refunded to taxpayers. Republicans said that would provide $2.5 billion in immediate property tax relief. But in his veto message, DeWine echoed what schools have said; that it goes against the local control given to school districts with voter-approved levies and would cause more levies, hurting districts' financial stability.
Lawmakers have until December next year to override, but Republicans have said overrides now could positively affect property tax bills that will come out in January.
