The Mahoning County Commissioners and State Representative Lauren McNally want the State of Ohio to lift financial burdens off the taxpayer. 

In the most recent revaluation of homes, about a third of residents  saw an increase in their property taxes.

“You have to seriously look at how much impact this is hitting, elderly people, people who are on fixed incomes, people who are sick, their home is all they have,” Commissioner Anthony Traficanti said. 

Now leaders are standing up to those hikes with four bills pending in the legislature:

  • HB 60 (Troy) - Expands the homestead exemption to cover an additional 75,000 seniors and raises its value to $40,000, providing nearly $250M in targeted relief.
  • HB 263 (Isaacsohn/Hall) - Freezes over $400M in property taxes for over 700,000 seniors making $50K or less.
  • HB 274 (Dell’Aquila/Matthews) - For individuals who qualify and have owned their homes for more than 20 years, this bill increases the exemption from $26,200 to $50,000.
  • HB 645 (Isaacsohn/Hall) - Legislation that provides a $1K property tax rebate to help more Ohioans afford their tax bills, targeting $1B in tax relief to over 1.3M middle-class homeowners and renters after their tax payments exceed 5% of their income.

“That would provide over 520 million dollars in direct relief for Ohioans today,” Rep. McNally said about HB 645 that was removed by the legislature in 2014.

If the bills pass and taxpayers get relief, the four local officials are calling on the state to pick up more of the funding for local governments and schools so no services are lost. 

“It's especially unfair when the state has the resources, they are just choosing to prioritize different things,” Rep. McNally said about taxpayers being responsible for the funding. 

One of those resources that they feel is sitting unused is the state's more than $3.5 billion rainy day fund.

“How about we let 88 counties get a piece of that money so we don't need to do anything to our taxpayers,” Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti said. 

Or McNally suggests putting the taxes on business owners rather than homeowners.

"Theirs options available to be able to keep our working men and women, our families and our seniors int heir home and not be taxed out of their property," Mahoning County Commissioner David Ditzler said. 

Rep. McNally is encouraging people to call their local state representative to pass the bills pending in the legislature that would give relief for future property taxes.

The legislature's next session will start up in November.