Cuyahoga County Treasurer Brad Grama told the Committee of the Whole on Nov. 25 that the county's two-year Taxpayer Assistance Program approved about 150 residents in its first year and has distributed roughly $1 million in direct assistance.

The pilot, funded through the county's DTAC mechanism, was budgeted at $5 million across two years with $2 million earmarked for direct assistance and $500,000 for housing counseling and program administration. Grama said the county received 615 total applications or inquiries in year one and that CHN Housing Partners administered the program initially under contract; the county has since ended CHN's administrative role effective Oct. 31 and will bring program administration in-house.

Grama said approved distributions and district-level allocations varied: initial district pools ranged from $46,000 (District 1) to $368,000 (District 7), approved individual distributions ranged from about $2,878 to $191,000, and the highest number of approved recipients in a district was 31 in District 10. Of 150 approved applicants, 47 required a payment plan because the $10,000 maximum did not fully resolve the delinquency; the treasurer said there have been no program defaults.

Administrative delays and data-sharing issues with CHN slowed processing in year one, Grama said. The program's first distributions were not made until April 2025 because of launch delays and reconciliation problems; data-access and privacy concerns on CHN's side contributed to the backlog. To avoid penalizing applicants for administrative delays, the county agreed with its fiscal officer to abate penalties and interest that accrued between a resident's application date and the county's processing of that application. Doctor Victoria Barry of the treasurer's delinquent tax outreach team clarified that abatements covered only amounts that accrued during the processing delay.

For year two, the treasurer announced several operational changes intended to speed access and reduce costs: lower the age threshold for eligibility from 70 to 67; allow applicants to apply online or in person (including at county outreach events and at the treasurer's office); stop requiring demographic data or proof of income on the initial inquiry form (the homestead office will verify eligibility); route payments directly to the county via ledger adjustments so approved assistance is applied in real time to tax reports; and rely on existing counseling agreements (including Community Housing Solutions, Benjamin Rose and CHN as a counseling partner) while administering the program with county staff. Grama estimated these changes could save about $250,000 in administrative costs in the second year of the pilot.

Council members pressed for details during Q&A about CHN's continuing role, the fiscal impact of bringing administration in-house, statutory authority to waive penalties or interest, and outreach strategies such as including notices on delinquent tax bills. Grama said bringing administration in-house would carry only minimal incremental staff-time costs, that CHN will remain a counseling partner but will not administer the program, and that the county is using its interpretation of the Ohio Revised Code to abate penalties and, with auditor concurrence, to waive interest in appropriate cases. Several members asked for clarity and records to document those interpretations.

Next steps: the treasurer said the county had received more than 300 new inquiries since Oct. 31 and will begin processing new inquiries in January after clearing existing ones; the county plans to open a Financial Empowerment Center on the first floor of the county building in the first quarter to provide an in-person application option and to continue outreach and partner fundraising to extend the pilot.