By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
State Representative David Thomas (District 65 – Hometown Jefferson) was the primary sponsor of HB 309.
https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/legislation/136/hb309
This new legislation gives the county budget commission the authority to reduce property tax revenues based on the current and projected financial strength of the taxing authority.
https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_136/legislation/hb309/05_EN/pdf
The budget commission shall examine such budget and, if the taxing authority is a board of education that has elected to include projections pursuant to division (E) of section 5705.391 of the Revised Code, shall examine such projections. Using the budget and, if applicable, included projections, the budget commission shall ascertain the total amount proposed to be raised in the
county for the purposes of each subdivision and other taxing units in the county and the need for those amounts. Except as otherwise provided in this section, the county budget commission may reduce the amount to be raised by any levy pursuant to section 5705.32 of the Revised Code…HB 309
The Lake County school districts have already met with the Budget Commission, and no changes were made by the Commission since HB 309 had not been enacted.
The Lake County Auditor has scheduled meetings for the local communities and the public libraries. Here is the announcement of dates and times for the meetings. The meetings will be held in Building C Assembly Room of the Administration Building. Since HB 309 is now in effect, the Budget Commission may make any property tax reduction they deem appropriate.
We plan to attend and record the Concord Township and the Lake County Library (Morley Library) meetings. We will update this article with the videos of the meetings, and the tax budgets.
Here is a link to an article we wrote on Morley Library:
Please note that they received $1,126,687 from the property taxes.
They earned $626,443 on their cash investments.
Their cash balance as of December 31, 2025 was $14,181,280!!!!!
Stay tuned…we will be very interested in the Budget Commission’s response to Morley Library’s new tax budget.
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Categories: Lake County - General, Lake County Politics, Uncategorized