Fairborn treasurer warns Ohio budget change could sharply cut school property-tax revenue

Mike Filo, the Fairborn City Schools treasurer, told the board May 1 that a provision passed by the Ohio House as part of the state budget would tie property-tax collections to school districts’ cash balances and could “take that money away from the schools.”

Filo presented the district’s required five-year forecast and said he modeled a worst-case scenario to show how the proposed change might affect Fairborn’s finances. “Property tax owners in Fairborn would see a 67% decrease in their taxes,” he said, adding that collections “would go from 1,400 to $462” under the House measure as he calculated it for the district.

The forecast the treasurer presented included several illustrative line items: a placeholder for a proposed 4-mill operating levy in November 2027, a $5 million maximum exposure shown for a new middle school (modeled as $2.5 million in each of two years), and a $750,000 placeholder this year for transfers to the district’s permanent-improvement account to fund urgent work such as new boilers for the Park Hills building. Filo also modeled double-digit…