By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
Lake County Auditor Chris Galloway does a good job explaining the pitfalls of House Bill 15 for the taxpayers of Lake County. The bill was written to expand the electrical power generation for the State of Ohio. It is needed to accommodate the projected growth of Ohio for the next 100 years. The problem with the bill is that it eliminates the property taxes for the Perry Nuclear Plant.
We reviewed the Auditor’s Schedule A for the Perry Local School District and discovered that the total property taxes paid by the public utilities (Class 3) for 2025 will be $3,782,107. That revenue would have to be transferred to the homeowners, agricultural (Class 1), and business and industrial (Class 2).
Currently the Class 1 pays $6,233,116, and Class 2 pays $2,757,658 in annual property taxes. Class 1 taxpayers in taxing districts 3,4,5 would see an approximately 42% increase in their property taxes to cover the loss of Perry property taxes.
The total property tax revenue collected from Class 3, public utilities, including for the Perry School District, is $40,792,486. That means that without the Class 3 property taxes the Lake County taxpayers would have to share an additional $37 million in property taxes.
We did a comparison of the property taxes collected in 2015 versus 2025 by Class 1, 2,3. Here is the report for your review.
Since 2015, there has been a total increase of $127,028,101 (33.3%) in property taxes. Class1 has increased $106,825,178 (39.5%), Class 2 has increased $8,898,965 (11.0%), Class 3 has increased $11,303,958 (38.3%) since 2015.
Class 1 accounts for 84.1% of the total increase of $127,028,101. Homeowners and agricultural have borne the brunt of the increased taxes.
We are off the opinion, that we are not on a sustainable path. We are taxing people out of their homes that have worked all their lives to achieve. The public sector is outgrowing the private sector’s ability to pay for the services.
This HB 15, in its current form, definitely has to be defeated!
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Categories: Lake County - General, Real Estate Taxes, Uncategorized