A Cincinnati City Council committee Monday approved the formation of a task force that will look at ways to alleviate the recent spike in property tax bills.
Councilmember Mark Jeffreys introduced the idea last week. His motion will be up for final approval Wednesday.
Other councilmembers say it's clear the property tax increases are a serious problem, but some balk at one of Jeffreys' ideas: offering property tax relief from a $50 million reserve that may no longer be needed for its original purpose.
"I will not spend any reserves until I am sure there's going to be be no layoffs to police, to fire, to AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees] or to any of our city workers," said Councilmember Jeff Cramerding. "Our pension is still underfunded; we owe that to our city employees. And after we have a structurally balanced budget, and we're not facing layoffs, and after our pension problem is solved, I'm very up to using the $50 million for property tax relief or other issues."
Councilmembers Reggie Harris, Scotty Johnson, and Seth Walsh echoed Cramerding's concerns.
The $50 million was set aside in case the city needs to repay income taxes collected from people who worked remotely during the pandemic.
Last month the Ohio Supreme Court ruled Cincinnati can keep those payroll taxes, but can't collect payroll taxes from work from home employees in the future. But the city law department says that ruling can be appealed; plus, there's a separate related lawsuit. It could be months or years before a final resolution.
Jeffreys says this is only one idea the task force would consider.
"The intent of this was, 'Hey, let's do a lot of this work, put some choices before council, including maybe some that leverage [the $50 million],' " he said. "We have a lot of competing priorities ... this at least gives us some options and recommendations for addressing this."
Jeffreys says the recommendations should come back within six months, and no later than the end of the year. It would include homeowners, city officials, nonprofits like Housing Opportunities Made Equal and Local Initiatives Support Corporation, as well as real estate and landlord groups like The Greater Cincinnati Realtist Association and The Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Apartment Association. Hamilton County Auditor Brigid Kelly and Treasurer Jill Schiller would also be involved.
Property valuations went up for many across Hamilton County after the county's regular six-year reappraisal in 2023. Other parts of the state, including parts of Butler and Warren counties, also saw big increases. That in turn raised property taxes for many homeowners and landlords. But those increases were not evenly spread across the board.
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There's a complex series of factors that determine the property tax liability a property owner faces. Those include local levies in effect, the property tax rate of the municipality the property is in and of course the value of the property, which is in itself determined by a company contracted by the county auditor to compare sale prices of a property and nearby properties, recent improvements and so forth. Also playing into the mix: any property tax abatements awarded on improvements made to a property.
The average boost in property taxes in Cincinnati was about 16%. But some neighborhoods in the city like East Price Hill, Camp Washington, North Fairmount and Mount Auburn saw much larger increases.
