County tax bills to stay the same
By Bill Bush
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
For decades, the state prodded county auditors to make sure homeowners' tax bills reflected that prices were climbing.
This year, nine Ohio counties have a different option: changing nothing.
At least five of them, including Franklin, Delaware and Licking counties in central Ohio, are poised to take the state up on it.
Auditors in these counties say they won't change any residential tax appraisals for their three-year update. The move effectively means that, for taxing purposes, nothing changed in these counties' housing markets from 2005 to 2007, despite a foreclosure crisis and price swings that have not been seen in decades.
The move is "arbitrary" and will force low- and moderate-income neighborhoods hit hard by foreclosures to pay more than their fair share of property taxes, said Bill Faith, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.
"They lose value in their home, but at the same time they're not going to get any break on taxes," Faith said. "This is a gift to middle- and upper-income neighborhoods in Franklin County. It's a gift."
By contrast, Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes says he'll be making neighborhood-by-neighborhood adjustments to tax values in the Cincinnati area despite the state's overall recommendation for no change.
"There would be so much injustice in that that I guess that we would just be completely slammed by (homeowners challenging their appraisals in) Board of Revision cases," Rhodes said.
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Topic: County tax bills to stay the same
