Commissioner Don Dixon said “for this year, as far as getting any help from the legislative side, to be able to help with these big increases on our property taxes, that window realistically has been closed.”
He told the Journal-News he is 100% in favor of giving the taxpayers a break. They haven’t included the windfall in next year’s budget so “if push came to shove if we had to do something else, we’d have the ability to do it.”
“I’m on board for doing it, it’s taxpayers’ dollars anyway, it’s going back where it came from,” Dixon said. “It’s not a whole lot but it’s a help and at least it shows our residents, our taxpayers that we are not only talking the talk, we’re walking the walk. It just shows good faith of what we’ve been saying and fighting for all along.”
About seven months ago Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix sounded the alarm that property values could shoot up 24%, in May that number had exploded to an average 42% hike across the county. Today the increase is around 37%, but the number is different for every individual depending largely on property sales from 2022 that were skewed in part by the pandemic.
The highest median increase is in Monroe at 41% and the lowest is 25% in the little sliver of Sharonville that resides within the county. Fairfield and Middletown will have a median increase of 40% and in a dozen of the tax districts the hikes are 35% or more.
When Nix announced the terrible news, Dixon issued a “call to action” to state legislators and other officials to some up with a solution. The outcome was two property tax relief bills known as HB 187 and SB 153, that would have cut an average 37% countywide value hike to around 25% by mandating a three-year average.
The Journal-News reported last week those bills in their current form are basically moot. HB 187 passed the house but now the senate has come up with another plan to expand the Homestead exemption to nearly all seniors on fixed incomes, but many others will still face stiff tax increases.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said they certainly need to consider doing something to help taxpayers.
“I don’t have a firm decision for my own self but I think we need to think about it before the end of the year,” Rogers said but told the Journal-News later “I’m thinking favorably about doing it, I’m leaning towards doing it.”
Commissioner Cindy Carpenter didn’t voice an opinion at the meeting but told the Journal-News she needs more data before she can form her decision. When the commissioners rolled back their entire $18.5 million millage last year she voiced concern the tax break didn’t benefit everyone equally.
“I’m on the wait and see,” she said adding she needs data regarding rental units in the county, “I want to see who is receiving those funds and I would want to look at what we’re doing for everybody.”
The legislative efforts aren’t dead but the solution that appears to be proceeding is to extend the $25,000 Homestead exemption beyond just the needy to most seniors. Sen. Bill Blessing, who chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee, told the Journal-News they are still hammering out the details on a bill amendment, but the credit would only go to those seniors with fixed incomes of $75,000 or less.
Nix issued a challenge to local taxing districts asking them to forgo the tax windfall that will result from the large increases last summer. If all had agreed taxpayers would realize a tax savings of nearly $41 million.
She told the Journal-News only Fairfield Twp. and the village of Seven Mile agreed to forgo the funds initially and Liberty Twp. officials were discussing it. She said discussions about the rollback faded when it appeared the fix was in at the state level.
“That was when we thought HB 187 was dead, when that got revived all of the rollback notions fell away,” Nix said.
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