March 11, 2026 · Ways And Means Committee · 5,249 words · 13 speakers · 86 segments
I'd like to call this meeting of the Ohio House Ways and Means Committee to order. Robert, please call our roll.
Chairman Romer.
I'm here.
Vice Chair Thomas.
Here.
Ranking Member Troy.
Here.
Representatives Click.
Daniels.
Here.
Demetrio is excused.
Glassburn.
Here.
Lear is excused.
Richardson.
Present.
Rogers.
Santucci.
Here.
Segrist.
Here.
Representative Thomas.
And we have a quorum. We're going to proceed as a full committee. As always, if you could check out Robert's minutes, and we have Representative Rogers checked in.
Check out Robert's minutes.
Any changes? Hearing none, they're accepted. We're gonna do a point of personal privilege real quickly. We have our friends from the Fraternal Order of Police here and Representative Thomas, our vice chair.
Thank you, Chair. I had a meeting right before this committee with four new friends from the FOP and said, hey, have you ever been in committee before? And they said no, and they had an opening until they met with Rep Lear, so I invite them over. Feel free to stand up and let's recognize you guys for all your service and your hard work for Ohio.
And by the way, if you folks want to come forward and say anything real quick, we're open. You don't have to. Most people say no, but I was offer. I was offer. Okay, with that, we're gonna start off with, we have Rep Hoops here, I see. So we're gonna start off with House Bill 598 to authorize local government to create residential stability zones. We're gonna have Rep Segrist, our committee member, and Repoops.
We were just commenting, we're normally next door. I like this room better. Chairman Rohmer, Vice Chair Thomas.
We're going to have you hit your mic there, sir.
Chairman Rohmer, Vice Chair Thomas, Ranking Member Troy, and members of the House Ways Means Committee, thank you for allowing my colleague and I the opportunity to testify on House Bill 598, legislation that would establish a residential stability zone for certain political subdivisions across the state of Ohio. I do want to note that our legislation is a companion to Senate Bill 42, led by Senators Reynolds and Craig in the other chamber. As a proponent of reform to our state's rising property tax debate, I was more than happy to joint sponsor this legislation when approached by Representative Segrist. House Bill 598, I believe, will be especially impactful to even my own constituents who represent an older demographic of our state's northwest corner of the state, and under this legislation, which authorizes exemptions for an indefinite period to those 60 years or older. Further, this bill authorizes the residential stability zones to limit home rural townships, counties, and municipalities to a period of 10 years and are subject to renewal. This renewal is important as it allows our local governments to assess the landscape and valuations of homes following each reappraisal cycle. Under the RSZ, inside the 20-floor or mill floor millage would be forgone, while outside millage would equalize up in levees would still be assessed. The bill also stipulates that applicants who apply should not have an income that exceeds 80% of the area median income. This limitation of income, as expressed in the resolution set forth by local entities who create these zones, will help in addressing the perfect storm of property tax spikes that we have seen in the last five years. In sum, this legislation is one critical piece of a broader discussion that is needed for Ohioans to aid soundly in their own homes and not worry about sacrifices that they shouldn't have to make when they receive their tax bills. House Bill 598 brings stability to home ownership in both our urban and rural communities, ensuring that our local governments are given the tools and resources needed to facilitate ongoing property tax relief. I'd now like to introduce Representative Segras for his testimony.
Thank you, Representative Hoops.
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Vice Chair Thomas, Ranking Member Troy, and members of the House and Ways Committee. Thanks for the opportunity to provide sponsor testimony today. I have to say I'm really excited to be here among these property tax-fighting giants that I'm surrounded by people that know so much about this world, so I'm happy to try to dip my toes in the pool here and try to help out. I want to present, as Rep Hoop said, companion legislation to Senate Bill 42. It authorizes local governments to establish residential stability zones, targeted temporary property tax relief for qualifying homeowners. And across Ohio, we all know that property taxes have risen sharply, not because families are earning more or buying larger homes, but because values have increased rapidly around them. For many homeowners, especially seniors and long-term residents on fixed incomes, these increases translate into tax bills they simply did not plan for or cannot absorb easily. They are not speculative buyers or investors. These are people who have lived in their homes for decades. They are deeply rooted in their communities, and increasingly they're forced to choose between paying their property taxes and meeting other basic needs, or in the worst case, selling homes they never intended to leave. House Bill 598 does not mandate a tax exemption. It authorizes counties, municipalities, and local and limited home rule townships if they choose to create residential stability zones by resolution. Local governments decide whether to participate, where the zones are located, how long they last, and how generous the exemption will be. The relief itself is limited and targeted. It applies only to a portion of the increase in assessed value, not to the home's base value. It's available only to homeowners who meet income, asset, and minimum ownership and occupancy requirements. It excludes properties already receiving major tax incentives, and it includes enforcement and recoupment provisions if an exemption is improperly obtained. For homeowners age 60 and over, the exemption may continue as long as they remain in their homes. For others, it is time limited. And in all cases, these zones themselves are capped at 10 years unless renewed by local action. In short, this is not a blanket tax cut, and it's not a statewide mandate. It's a locally controlled stabilization tool, one that communities can use to help prevent displacement while they work on a longer-term housing and tax policy solution. Members of the committee, this bill recognizes a simple reality. People should not lose their homes simply because the market around them changed faster than they could keep up. I appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this legislation, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Very much appreciate it. I'll open up to questions from the committee. Do we have any questions from the committee? We'll go with Representative Troy first and then Representative Richardson.
Thank you so much for your testimony. I just have to say, when it comes to seniors, you're spot on. We have to do something. Anytime when someone comes to this committee and starts talking about the compelling need for seniors, my ears are all listening And so I genuinely thank you for this is sort of a unique approach I actually have two questions Why age 60 is the first question I'd have to follow up, and I'm not sure why we picked that age. Okay, because 60 seems fairly young to me. Maybe that's just as you get older, 60 looks younger. It's a sliding scale. N plus 10 is the same. Okay.
Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir. Do you have an age that we should be looking at?
Well, you know, I would say at least 65 or older. It would be something that, you know, that's the age where Medicare starts and different things. So I think 65 is probably a more viable option there. And the second question, may I follow up?
Chairman, thank you so much. The calculation, I think I heard you say it's 80% of the area and medium, et cetera, et cetera. In your area that you're looking at. Give me an example. What is that income? What are we talking about? Give me a dollar figure for eligibility, an estimated.
Well, I think it's, I mean, I'd have to look at the numbers. I mean, it could be, I don't know, 40, 50,000, 60. I mean, we would have to do this study. I think we were just trying to put a process together on how we could deal with this type of issue, and we felt this would be the best way to do it, where we'd get information from the groups that do put these income numbers out there. And to give you a number probably depends on what part of the state you're in, what county you're in. The rural areas up in northwest Ohio are different than in the Appalachian area, So, I mean, that's what we would have to look at. Okay.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Ranking Member Troy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, gentlemen, for this. Obviously, whatever property tax relief we can get to those who need it, we should be doing. We have several measures that I think will do that. Hopefully, some of them will start moving. But in terms of the determination, you're a former auditor, Mr. Hoop, so it would be the auditor's responsibility then to make all these calculations on what assessed value is removed from the folks within these stability zones?
I think it would be because they are the assessor for the county, and they would be the ones that would have all that information in doing it. Okay.
Follow-up, Mr. Chair.
Follow-up?
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So obviously this provides relief by reducing the assessed valuation, which means there will be less revenue for the entities, as we know, about two-thirds of it to the schools and all that. But is there any, and decisions made by the local government, I mean, is there any reimbursement to those taxing entities like we do with the homestead exemption or some of the rollbacks to make up the difference in what revenue is lost to the entities that depend upon that revenue?
I'm not sure. I believe so, though, and I believe they have. My understanding is that these are targeted areas, oftentimes gentrified areas where the areas you're targeting not only have the age factor, but the income factor, and they've lived in their homes a long time. So I believe that that taxing authority would have the ability to do and protect the schools like we're talking about. Mr. Chairman and Representative Troy, the way I look at it is that that would be something that the locals would have to decide on. You know, if they decide to take action on this, they then can determine, you know, if the entities in that area are going to be reimbursed. Now, where the funds come from, it's probably not going to come from the state, but it's going to be something that would be local.
Why not?
I mean, so it would be something that they would have to decide on locally, you know, the home rules and things like that. And again, I want to say, you know, we've had, Mr. Chair, what, over 25 different, you know, options out there. And this is just one more that we want to put in the toolbox for people to take a look at and see if we can, you know, make this work.
Thank you.
Representative Glasper.
Sure. Again, thank you both for bringing this. This is, I think, as Representative Richardson said, a unique approach that I appreciate this as a different tool. Coming from local government, I did a property tax cut in my community, and one of the biggest hesitations we had is we could not target it to anyone. It had to be across the board, a millage reduction for everyone at the same drop, businesses, residences. It didn't matter if you made a million dollars or were on a fixed income. So I just wanted to say I appreciate that you are creating an option for local governments to be nuanced about this and thoughtful, both because it gets money to where people, where they need it, but also that frees up money that you could actually maybe do more for those that need it because you're not using that extra money for folks that don't. And so if that was your intent, I'd love to hear more of your thought process or how you came to this. This is very interesting to me. Thank you so much.
I think most of you know these were proposed in the government's tax hearings this past January. This had a favorable review. There was some comments and feedback for some possible amendment considerations, but overall it was, I think, viewed favorably by the bipartisan committee that was involved in that. Mr. Chairman, Representative Glassburn, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, we did some things. The bills that we've already passed and signed by the governor was kind of an overall process of getting everybody the same. But now try to be more laser focused on affecting the, like the seniors or people who are over 60 or 65 and have a certain income so we can zero in. Because I still hear that. I mean, you know, the ones who, the seniors who are just hanging on, you know, by a thread to make sure they can still live in their homes and not lose them. That's kind of what this is focusing in on.
Follow up? Do we have other questions?
I was doing a little bit of calculation here, imagine that. And relative to Representative Richardson's question, I was checking Williams County. I believe that is your home county.
One of my counties. Pardon? One of the counties. One of my counties, yes. The median income there is $62,000.
So at the 80% level, that's just under $50,000. Representative Richardson, the median income is approximately $115,000 in Union County, which would put that 80% level at about $90,000 in that range. You're rich. Yes.
Yes.
Representative Glassman.
So I'll just add, I was curious about this as well, and the bill language says it's for the MSA, not for the subdivision. Yeah, I assume it is. I just wanted to give folks a general idea of the levels that we were looking at, and I thought I'd choose two districts of the folks that were working on this. I did not check Franklin, sorry.
Oh, Representative Troy. Thank you. One quick bit. So looking at the bill, it authorizes townships, municipalities, and counties to do this. As I indicated before, two-thirds of the property taxes are probably going to the school districts. Do you think maybe something to look at is maybe let the school districts also have a voice in this, in terms of being able to sign off on it like we do in some areas like CRAs and stuff like that at a certain level I mean I would be Mr Chairman Representative Troy we would be willing to look at that I mean that a good point
And, you know, because most of the taxes, 65% of the taxes do go to the schools. So we would have, no, again, we're just bringing an idea to the individuals who've been working on all these things, and we're open to any changes that make this a better bill.
Other questions, comments? Seeing none, thank you so much. We very much appreciate it, gentlemen.
Thank you.
We are now going to move forth on House Bill 209 to exempt tips from state, municipal, and school district income taxes. We're bringing it forth for its second hearing. My office did not receive any request for in-person testimony. Is there anybody here that wishes to testify in person? Seeing none, I'd like to direct the members to their iPads. We do have submitted written testimony from Allison DeRoberts with the Ohio Restaurant and Hospitality Alliance, and that will constitute our second hearing on House Bill 209. Next on our agenda, House Bill 443, to prohibit enforcing property tax liens against certain homesteads. We're bringing House Bill 443 forth for its third hearing. I didn't have any requests for in-person opponent testimony. Is there anybody here that wishes to testify in person as an opponent? We do have some, in fact, give me one second here. We do have multiple written testimonies as opponents. Kelly Kellich with the County Treasurer's Association, John McManus with Montgomery County Treasurer's Office, Jill Schiller with Hamilton County Treasurer's Office, and Dawn Hoosier with NAR Solutions as the Managing Director. Do we have anybody else wishing to testify? Seeing none, that will constitute the third hearing on House Bill 443. We are now going to move forth to House Bill 613. Our own illustrious members, Click and Thomas, for first hearing. House Bill 613, while they're getting up there, is to modify tax enforcement authority. And we are hearing sponsor testimony.
Mr. Chair, I thought we were next until you said illustrious, and I wondered who else might be going next.
Well, I consider every member of this committee illustrious. Well, thank you, sir. And thank you, Representative Segrist.
Or was that Representative Rogers? I'm sorry. This is my fourth testimony in the last hour, so I may be slightly out of breath.
Chair Romer, Vice Chair Thomas, Ranking Member Troy, and the illustrious colleagues on the Ohio House Ways and Means Committee, I thank you for the opportunity to testify on House Bill 613, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Among those prized principles of American liberty include the right to redress our government in due process and a timely education of the alleged violations. We have the right to tell the government that they got it wrong. And as we are all members of the government, we all understand that and have received that a time or two. We have the right to prove our point, and we have the right to a timely response. Unfortunately, many of our taxpayers are experiencing something less. They're complaining that tax appeals are long and drawn out and untimely. In the meantime, the taxpayer is being assessed fines and interest on unresolved and disputed tax obligations. If Ohio is going to be the place to do business, we have to be the state where business can do their business without unnecessary impediments, red tape, and bureaucracy. We must remember that there are 49 other options where taxpayers and businesses can go. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights is one more way that we declare that Ohio is indeed the heart of it all. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights will achieve the following. It will require the tax commissioner to appoint at least one problem resolution officer, and that contact information must be listed on the homepage. age. Interests must stop accruing after one year if their determination is not made. Tax commissioners shall provide a detailed report on the number of audits, appeals, and resolutions, including the amount of time required to resolve those cases. It must also tell us if they are private, personal, or if they are business disputes. Right now, folks have a hard time finding that information. The tax commissioner shall grant a hearing on appeals within 180 days, and a taxpayer may request a proposed final determination, and upon delivery, the taxpayer has 30 days to contest the determination before it becomes final. It requires the Board of Tax Appeals to render a decision within one year. The deadline may be extended by mutual consent. Representative Thomas and I have spoken with the tax commissioner and the Board of Tax Appeals, and we understand the unique challenges that they face. We're not trying to throw arrows or darts or rocks at them. We know that they want to do these things. They have a desire to do these things. And they have some challenges in accomplishing these goals. And they may come in. We anticipate that they will come in and make some recommendations on how we can help them to help the taxpayers, which is ultimately our goal. And we want to work together. So we're open to collaboration with them and with this committee and the best ways that we can achieve fairness and timeliness in settling these disputes when people face questions regarding their tax obligations. I now yield to the illustrious ranking member, Dave Thomas.
Thank you, Chair, ranking member, fellow committee members. Really appreciate the opportunity to join this bill with Representative Click. With his testimony changes today, we kind of condensed it all into one testimony in case one of us had to give it. I will only add to RepClick's testimony that this is a bill not just for businesses and those that are appealing from the commercial side, but really I view this almost much more for the individual side. As auditor through the Board of Revision process, we had many traditional, average Bob and Betty Buckeyes that would appeal their property value to the Board of Tax Appeals. and that process, while at the county level I would bake cookies and we had a really nice, easy process for the Board of Revision, their experience at the state level was not as positive. I think this bill does not punish or does not mean to dictate to the Board of Tax Appeals and the Department of Taxation. More so, it follows what we've been practicing with shot clocks and we're trying to have much more of that certainty with our taxpayers at the state level. So just to reiterate, establishing timelines, shot clocks for appeals, requiring annual reports and audits of those, and expediting the refunds and the interest side means the taxpayers will have a much better sense of timing, much more knowledge, and much less of a cost to appeal their property value, which, as RepClick started, we should never put barriers up to our citizens and our taxpayers challenging their government. So with that, we are happy to answer questions. There is a companion bill in the Senate. Senator Schaefer has this. We've actually expanded the bill a little bit through that process. So hopefully between our two chambers, we will be achieving this resolution for our taxpayers. Thank you.
Thank you so much for coming in. I have people that reach out to me periodically about issues that are taking a long time for resolution. Did you hear actual constituents, taxpayers, that reached out to you and said that this is not a bill in search of a problem but it really is a problem right now Through the chair to the chair yes I have been in some meetings with taxpayers also with the Ohio Chamber of Commerce
This is very important legislation to the chamber, and they have connected me with taxpayers who are having difficulties getting resolution to their taxes. Okay.
Chair, I will also add that in our conversation with the Department of Taxation, the department, a vast majority of the time is far faster than what our shot clock in this bill is actually dictating. So we believe they will be fully compliant with the vast majority. It's those much more intricate cases that are also much more costly to our taxpayers that we are trying to have them have resolution much faster.
I, too, have experienced complaints from taxpayers at the county side. Okay. Thank you. Ranking Member Troy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. Obviously, you want the Board of Tax Appeals to move a lot quicker on tax appeals, and for the last several years, they have approached the General Assembly saying that they are horribly understaffed, and we haven't done anything. I mean, so basically you're saying we want you to have that engine run a lot faster. We're not going to give you any gas to run that engine. And so I think that, you know, we need to recognize that they have been, they had their budget hearing, I think, in front of this committee, the Board of Tax Appeals, talked about their staffing shortages. And so if you want them to move faster on this, I mean, I can't support this bill unless there's an appropriation to help them get this job done. And because these cases are getting more and more complicated, especially the larger entities and all that. And, you know, they require a lot more detailed work on the part of the Board of Tax Appeals. And to just basically say, well, if you don't get this done in a year, you know, that taxpayer is off the hook. I just think we need an appropriation. They don't have the staff to do what you'd like them to do in this particular bill.
Through the chair to Representative Troy, thank you for those comments. And I did address that in my sponsor testimony that we have those conversations with them. We are aware of those issues, and we are willing, we expect them to come in. We had these conversations after we had already dropped the legislation, and Representative Thomas and I talked about, are we willing to work with them? And we said yes, but we also thought it was better. Let's get the testimony process rolling. Let's get sponsored testimony. Let's have some interested party, proponent, opponent testimonies, and let them state what they need to us directly. and we are willing to collaborate, as I said in my testimony, with this committee and with them to make sure that they have the tools and the resources that they need to achieve the job that they're seeking to do.
Follow-up. Chair, ranking member, two quick things with that. First, in that budget committee hearing last year, the chair and I explicitly asked the BTA and the Department of Taxation, can we give you more resources for your tax appeal process? They did not request and said they could not request. So that was one of the hang-ups with that process. Number two, there are other legislative actions happening that will attempt to reduce the number of cases that go to the BTA. House Bill 590 with Josh Williams and myself, for example, is one of those. So we are also looking at policy changes as well, in addition to negotiations with them, as RepClick said.
Thank you, Representative Tom.
And I've seen, I've been doing a lot of budget hearings over the years, and a lot of these entities in the executive branch, they're very reluctant to second-guess the governor's recommendations in his budget. And so I think that's what sometimes we have to kind of be the intervener, the catalyst to ferret these things out and say, if you can't get the job done with that, then we've got to give you some more money. because I remember I asked the question of the tax commissioner about you used to have 1,400 employees, now you're down to 850. How cumbersome is it to make sure we have proper tax compliance in the state of Ohio and reluctance to comment on that, so thank you.
Other questions, comments? Seeing none, Representative Glassmore, what were you thinking?
Sorry. Sorry to everyone. This is probably too complicated of a question for initial testimony, but maybe you have some commentary. I thought that some of the tax reforms that have happened over the last several years eliminated a lot of the school districts coming in as outside parties challenging these cases, and so that the volume of the cases went down. And so the acuity, if you will, the complexity of these cases that remain are the ones that are actually hard. Is there something different the state needs to be doing to enable tax to, again, meet the timeline that you're doing beyond money because these are the more complicated cases that still remain there? If you have any commentary on that.
Through the chair, Representative Glassburn, and a complimentary shout-out to Bob and Betty Buckeye for my colleague Representative Rogers over here. Yeah, they spoke to us about the need to have qualified tax attorneys because it takes time to bring them up to speed, so it's not like they can just hire them tomorrow and they're ready to roll. There's a training process. There's a qualification process. There's the amount of earnings that they get because, quite honestly, they can go somewhere else, use the resource and make far more money doing less complicated work. And so, you know, I think those are things that they should bring into this committee and they should elaborate on those things from their perspective rather than allowing me to represent them in that. And I think I certainly, for one, am willing to hear what they would like to ask for more directly to the committee rather than just the IP meetings that we've had with them. let them present their case to this whole committee, and then let this whole committee decide what we need to do. Because that's where I said we're not throwing stones at them. We understand the difficulty they have, and we also understand the desire that they have to provide good service. We do think there are some roadblocks in the way that are inhibiting them from achieving what they want to achieve. And so we need, as a committee, to examine those needs and decide together and collectively what is the best way to help them achieve those purposes. But behind all of it, we have to look out for that taxpayer. Whether it's an individual, whether it's a business, we need to make sure that their needs are met. And if that requires an appropriation, then let's do the appropriation. If it doesn't, let's not. That's not something I'm prepared to decide single-handedly myself today. but I think that as a committee we can take a look at all of that.
Chair, member, this also isn't just a property tax bill. This also deals with sales tax and income tax as well. So putting all of that kind of together and looking at those time frames is also important. And Representative, you are correct that the cases, the easier cases, are not necessarily coming before the BTA. The cases that they're getting are very difficult. esoteric issues that do take a long time. So that is a definite issue, and I know they're working really hard to resolve those.
Do we have other questions, comments? Seeing now, oh, Rankin Member Troy.
Just a suggestion that since this involves the Board of Tax Appeals, we have an illustrious former colleague that sits on that board. I think it would be wise to maybe invite him in to get his comments on this particular bill, former Representative Seitz. Just a suggestion.
Thank you. I'm sure the representative would do an outstanding job. Other questions, comments? Seeing none, that'll constitute the first hearing on House Bill 613. And with no further business to come before the committee, for the fourth time in under an hour, we are adjourned.