My Position

I've spent this campaign knocking on doors across Rocky River, Westlake, Bay Village, Westpark, and Fairview Park, and no question comes up more than: why do property taxes keep climbing, and what can we do about it?

For too many West Shore families, rising property values feel like a tax punishment, not good news. For seniors who have lived in their homes for decades, a tax reappraisal can mean worrying whether they'll still be able to afford their home. For young families trying to 

buy their first home, rising taxes add another barrier to putting down roots.

Homeowners need relief. But fixing this means reckoning with why it's complicated: our public schools and essential local services rely heavily on property taxes. Ohio needs reform that protects both — our taxpayers and our important services. My position: Protect. Stabilize. Don't Shift.

• Protect seniors and young or low-income homeowners from overburdensome taxes.

• Stabilize the system so a dramatic reappraisal doesn't create sudden, unpredictable tax shocks to homeowners.

• Don't Shift the burden. Relief isn't real if Columbus cuts property taxes and simply forces schools to seek another levy or replaces the revenue with higher sales or income taxes.

What Are Property Taxes Used For

A property tax bill has two distinct origins. The Ohio Constitution allows local governments to collect up to 1% of your property's value ("inside mills") without a vote; state law decides how that unvoted share is split among your county, city, township, and school district. Everything above that 1% is a voted levy: a tax you and your neighbors approved directly at the ballot box, one levy at a time ("outside mills"). The county auditor administers both pieces — calculating values, applying the state's formulas, and printing the bill — but doesn't write the rules for either one.

That's why as your state representative, I will have the power to help fix property taxes. The legislature can't undo a levy approved by the voters, but it can limit the levy as values rise, create exemptions and credits, decide how often values are reassessed, and if caps should be applied.

About 60% of property tax revenue funds local schools; the rest supports libraries, roads, public safety, and parks. Ohioans paid $16.7 billion in property taxes in the most recent year on record — and Ohio now ranks 8th-highest in the nation for property tax rates.

Every six years, county auditors reappraise property values based on the local real estate market, with a lighter statistical update at the three-year mark in between. The 2024 reappraisal increased Cuyahoga County residential values by an average of 32%, with some communities as high as 67% — a dramatic jump in assessed value that translated to much higher property taxes.

The Current Landscape

Frustration over rising property taxes has fueled a grassroots campaign, pushing a constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes in Ohio entirely. It fell short of the signatures needed for the November 2026 ballot and is now aiming for 2027. Opponents warn that eliminating roughly two-thirds of local government and school revenue overnight would force either deep service cuts or a much bigger tax burden shifted onto sales and income taxes.

The state has tried to address this, but it only fixed half the problem. House Bill 920, passed in 1976, protects outside (voted) mills: a school district can't collect more revenue from an existing levy just because home values rose. Inside mills had no such protection — as values climbed, that portion of your bill climbed right along with them.

In March 2026, a five-bill package (House Bills 124, 186, 129, 335, and 309) took effect and delivers a combined $3 billion in relief: it caps inside-mill growth to inflation for the first time, tightens the cap on how outside mills can grow, shifts relief toward homeowners who actually live in their homes, gives county auditors control of property valuation, and gives county budget commissions authority to reduce a voter-approved levy if it's collecting more than a district needs.

These are needed corrections, but they aren't enough.

What We Can Do

• Protect seniors from being taxed out of their homes. I support meaningful property-tax protections for long-term senior homeowners, including a freeze for qualifying seniors. Bipartisan House Bill 156 (the 70/70 plan) proposes freezing property taxes for homeowners at age 70 who've owned their home for at least 10 years and meet income limit of roughly $70,000. It's a good start.

• Provide targeted relief for young and low-income homeowners. I support studying a circuit-breaker. Property taxes are based primarily on the value of your house, but your ability to pay them comes from your income. A circuit breaker recognizes that difference and creates a formula for weighing both.

• Create a more predictable, fairer valuation formula. When values jump 32% - or as much as 67% for some communities - in a single reappraisal cycle, it’s unfair to homeowners. Ohioans deserve a system that smooths those swings and helps homeowners plan ahead, including a valuation formula that takes more into account than just the sales market, phasing in extraordinary valuation increases so homeowners aren't hit with sudden tax shocks, and a possible cap on how much a reappraisal can raise a property's assessed value in a single cycle.

• Keep relief from becoming a shell game. Property tax relief can't simply shift the burden elsewhere or gut the schools, police, and fire departments our communities depend on. Ohio's state government should follow through on its own responsibility to fund public education, rather than continuing to push more of that cost onto local property taxpayers.

Reach Out to Me

You can reach out to me and tell me your thoughts and concerns about property taxes. Together we can find relief that's real — without losing funding to our schools and safety services.