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End Property Tax to Protect Homeownership and Restore Fairness

By Contributing Writer on June 5, 2025

June 5, 2025

End Property Tax to Protect Homeownership and Restore Fairness

By Timberlake Mayor, John Marra

In his recent guest column, Concord Township Administrator Andy Rose warns that eliminating property taxes would devastate local communities. But the true threat to Ohioans is not tax reform—it’s the very system we have now, one that allows the government to seize your home even after your mortgage is paid off. That isn’t ownership—it’s permanent rent to the state.

Let’s be clear: property tax is a lien. If you fall behind, even due to illness, fixed income, or rising costs, the government can and will take your home, auction it, and keep the proceeds—leaving you with nothing. This has happened to thousands of Ohio families, not because they’re reckless, but because the system is inherently unjust.

Rose suggests that eliminating property taxes would cut off essential services. What he doesn’t say is that only about 20% of your property tax bill funds local services like police, fire, EMS, and sanitation. These services are important—but they can be billed as direct service fees, just like trash, water, or sewer bills. This is more transparent and more equitable.

The majority of property taxes—often over 60%—go to fund public schools. But Ohio’s Supreme Court has ruled in the DeRolph decisions that school funding is the responsibility of the state, not the property owner. Property tax should not be the primary mechanism to fund education, especially when it punishes those with no children in school, or those struggling to remain in their homes.

And here’s the contradiction: Municipal services are delivered based on population and household count—not property value. A two-person household in a modest ranch gets the same police and fire coverage as a family in a million-dollar home. Yet one may pay 10 times the tax bill. That’s not fair—it’s government overreach built into the tax code.

Andy Rose claims that property taxes are “stable and predictable.” But for homeowners, especially in working-class neighborhoods, they are anything but. Mass appraisals done by out-of-state firms can raise a homeowner’s taxable value by 30%, 50%, or even 100%—without a sale, without consent, and without a vote. These assessments are often impossible to challenge, and the burden of proof is unfairly placed on the homeowner.

Meanwhile, school districts automatically collect more from these valuation spikes due to Ohio’s 20-mill floor, even if voters never approved a new levy. It’s a blank check that grows every time the market does, creating an invisible tax hike that working families can’t stop.

Let’s also talk about who really benefits from the status quo. It’s not seniors, not single parents, not fixed-income homeowners. It’s bloated school administrations, tax collection vendors, and layers of bureaucracy that continue to grow even as proficiency scores decline. And yet, critics of reform want you to believe eliminating property tax is a gift to the wealthy. The truth? Wealthy landowners don’t lose their homes over unpaid tax bills—everyday people do.

This movement isn’t about gutting services. It’s about replacing a failing, valuation-based system with a population-based and usage-based model. Services can be billed directly. School funding can come from state-level income taxes, luxury sales taxes, or real estate transaction fees—methods that are constitutional, voter-approved, and tied to actual income or consumption, not your ability to hold onto your home.

There Are Better Ways for Townships to Fund Services

Critics say townships will collapse without property taxes because they can’t levy income or sales taxes. That’s misleading. Here are practical options:

1. Direct Service Fees: Fire, EMS, and police can be funded the same way water, sewer, and trash are—through monthly or annual service fees based on usage or household count.

2. Contracted Services Based on Population: Many small municipalities already contract services like fire and EMS based on population or number of households, not property value. This ensures fairness and affordability.

3. Urban Township Status: Townships like Concord—with populations over 15,000—can adopt Urban Township status under Ohio law (ORC §504.01). This grants limited home rule, allowing greater local control, the power to regulate and administer services more efficiently, and the ability to bill more equitably—without becoming a city or needing property tax as the main revenue tool.