The corpus › Revenue Stream

Local Property Tax

The tax levied by a school district on property within its territory, historically covering both real property and — until the H.B. 66 phase-out — tangible personal property used in business. It is the oldest of Ohio’s school revenue streams and the one whose behavior explains most of what the others are reacting to.

revenue-stream/local-property-tax · 8 nodes point here

Its defining characteristic in Ohio is that it does not grow. Under H.B. 920, reduction factors lower the effective millage of existing voted levies as reappraisal raises assessed values, so a levy yields approximately the same nominal dollars year after year regardless of what happens to property values. verified Growth comes from three places only: new construction added to the tax base, new levies approved by voters, and reaching the 20-mill floor, below which reduction factors stop operating. verified

A district’s revenue trajectory is therefore set less by its wealth than by its levy history and its voters’ willingness. Two districts with identical valuation can be on entirely different paths. inference And because the yield is nominally flat while costs rise, a district that passes no new levy is losing real revenue every year without any decision having been made by anyone. inference That mechanism — automatic real decline absent affirmative action — is the engine of the disparities litigated in DeRolph.

Properties

NameLocal property tax
Levellocal
Legal basisOhio Const. art. XII (taxation); R.C. 5705 (tax levy law); R.C. 319.301 (reduction factors); R.C. 5713 and 5715 (valuation and reappraisal).
RestrictionDepends on the levy. Operating levies produce unrestricted general fund revenue; permanent improvement, bond, and emergency levies are restricted to their stated purpose. The distinction matters because the funding formula computes an operating cost, and restricted revenue cannot be applied to it.
How it growsNominally flat for existing levies, by design. Reduction factors offset valuation growth on existing real property. Exceptions: new construction, newly voted millage, inside (unvoted) millage, and districts at the 20-mill floor, whose revenue rises with valuation.
Series in the repositorycrates/dispersion/fixtures/sd1-district-taxes.csv — taxable value by class and real property taxes charged, TY2021 through TY2024, from Table SD-1. verified The longer view is the local column of crates/dispersion/fixtures/f33-ohio-panel.csv, FY2012-FY2022 on the Census Bureau's definitions rather than the Department of Taxation's; the two are not the same measure and must not be spliced.