Thursday, August 28, 2014

Kasich Record: Largest Number of Property Tax Increases. Ever.

As part of this week's return to school for Ohio's 1.8 million schoolchildren, we at Innovation Ohio have posted what amounts to most of the education-related material it's done during the Gov. John Kasich's years.

The material is pretty damning.

However, there is an additional fact that speaks to Gov. Kasich's historic divestment from public education. Because Kasich has committed the smallest share of the state budget for education since 1997, local property taxpayers have seen more property tax increases than any first three years of an Ohio governor's regime on record.





























As you can see, according to the Ohio Department of Taxation, property taxpayers in more school districts saw their property tax rates (total gross rate) go up in the first three years of the Kasich administration than at any other comparable time since 1994 -- the earliest record available.

Nearly 1/2 of all Ohio school districts have had to increase their property taxes under this governor. Meanwhile, his predecessor had the lowest number of increases on record. So in three years we've gone from the fewest to the most property tax increases on record -- a greater than 20% increase.

Remember that the Ohio Supreme Court ruled four times that the state needed to rely less, not more on property taxes to pay for schools. As you can see, the exact opposite is occurring under this governor.

Quite a swing.

Quite a record.