Butler County property owners will see some reduction in property taxes next year.
The Butler County Commission on Monday approved two measures that will reduce property taxes. The county saw an almost 40% increase on average in property taxes in 2023.
Commissioners approved a reduction in the inside millage for the county's property taxes. Those are taxes that don't require residents' votes, unlike tax levies. The tax cut will save the owner of a $100,000 home about $100 a year.
The Board also approved a so-called "piggyback" of the state's homestead exemption.
Under a provision signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine earlier this year, counties can effectively match the state's tax exemption of the first $28,000 of property value for people over 65 or with permanent disabilities who make $40,000 a year or less. That's about 19,000 people in Butler County. The move will cost the county about $1 million.
Commissioner Cindy Campbell said that move is necessary to help keep lower-income residents in their homes.
"We know that the largest-growing population in our homeless community are the first-time homeless, and we don't want to create any more first-time homeless," she said. "So we are doing what we can, where we can."
Together, the two provisions will eliminate roughly $20 million in property tax revenue for the county. But Commission President Don Dixon says the county can handle the reduced revenue.
"This will in no way affect any of the services residents in Butler County have today," he said. "Our revenues are over and above what we need to do this."
Butler County Auditor Nancy Nix released information showing that the taxing authorities in the county received roughly $78 million in extra revenue due to the big property tax increases in 2023. Some of those entities — cities and school districts — stand to lose money under the new tax cuts. But not as much as they gained under the 2023 increases, according to auditor data.
At a news conference following the vote on the tax cuts, Commission President Dixon said the local measures likely wouldn't be enough to offset the 2023 property tax increases.
The Ohio General Assembly floated a number of measures to reduce property taxes in the state budget, but DeWine vetoed almost all of them due to potential severe negative impacts on municipal and school funding sources. The governor has convened a task force to study additional solutions.
Dixon said legislators should keep looking for solutions.
"State officials, you have to do something," he said. "These tax increases that are 30, 35 percent at one time, you have to be able to stop that from happening."
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