Hold on to your wallets, the local taxing authorities are going to be reaching in for more of your money.

At the Lake County Commissioners’ meeting today, the Lake County Auditor, Mr. Edward Zupancic, broke this bad news:  The Perry Nuclear Power Plant portion taxed as a public utility has been devalued by more than $50 million dollars, and the impact to the schools’ tax revenue will be substantial.  Of course, they will be looking for the residents of the respective communities to cover the shortfall.  There was no estimated cost to the individual taxpayer mentioned or the cost per $100,000 of home valuation.

As soon as we get more details on the impact to the various Lake County communities, we will post the results on this website.  However, the look on all the commissioners’ faces, and the doomsday rhetoric of the Auditor makes me very concerned.

We will make our basic statement again;  “If we continue on the path of ever escalating real estate taxes we will start prices those citizens living on fixed incomes out of their homes that they have worked all their lives to achieve”.

Update: 10/18/17

Here is the letter prepared by Mr. Edward H. Zupancic, Lake County Auditor telling everyone of First Energy’s filing of their public utility valuations, and the significant devaluations for districts in which their facilities (Perry Nuclear Power Plant and Eastlake Coal Plat) are located.

Zupancic letter re_ Public Utility Revaluations

The next link is a schedule of the annual impact on the real estate taxes collected by each political sub-division. (We have reworked the original Zupancic’s worksheet to show totals)

Public Utilities Devaluations Impact on Political Sub-Divisions

There is an overall drop in real estate tax revenues of $5,647,893 (23.5%) from previous years. Perry Local School District absorbed the biggest loss with a drop of $2,285,273 (31.9%) from the previous year.

The residents in the Willoughby-Eastlake school district just experienced an increase in their real estate taxes for the Emergency levy, and the Debt levy without even having a vote. Since those levies collect a specific amount of money, the residents will have to pick up the shortfall.

We will keep you posted if we hear additional news about this issue.  I hope that this does not mean more sub-divsions will place levies on the May 2018 ballot.  If they do, we will be sure to ensure that they provide us with the facts and figures to justify any increases.

Categories: Lake, Real Estate Taxes, Tax Levies, Uncategorized