By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
The recent “non-vote” on the owner-occupancy property tax credit by Lake County Commissioner Morris Beverage and Morgan McIntosh started us wondering about the dollar impact to the taxing authorities. We sent emails to the Lake County Auditor Chris Galloway and Dr. Chris Rateno, Superintendent of the Riverside School District. We would like to thank both of them for their prompt responses and transparency.
Our email to Auditor Galloway:
Auditor Galloway,
Can you please provide the increased revenue to be received by the taxing authorities because of the non-vote on the owner occupancy tax credits?
Here is his response:
We won’t have that number until we do calc at the end of the year. That’s for 2027.
This year the local OOC was ~$6.9m. You can guestimate the total for OOC in 2027 will be about $7m.
Here is our email to Dr. Rateno:
Dr. Rateno,
Now that the owner occupancy credits will not be renewed by the Lake County Commissioners I would like to know what is the additional revenue that the Riverside School District will receive?
Also, if the 1% earned income tax levy is voted on by the school board next Tuesday, how much revenue will be received. If the same revenue was generated by a property tax levy, how many mills would it require?
Here is Dr. Rateno’s response to us:
The owner occupancy will return around $660,000 to the general fund.
If passed, once fully collected the 1% earned income tax is projected to bring in $13.7 Million to be split between operations and building permanent improvements (renovate/build on to the Riverside Campus). According to the Ohio Department of Taxation, this is equivalent to a 7.82 mil levy based on 2025 valuation.
We will continue to report on the property taxes, and any proposed earned income tax levies proposed for Lake County.
ANY TAX CAUSING A CITIZEN TO BECOME HOMELESS IS IMMORAL!
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Categories: Community Activism, Lake County - General, Lake County Politics, Uncategorized