House Ways and Means advances bill giving county budget commissions broader authority over levies; 1-year renewal safe-harbor tabled

The Ohio House Ways and Means Committee advanced a substitute to House Bill 309, which revises how county budget commissions may review and roll back local property tax levies, after debate Tuesday that included testimony from county auditors and the Ohio Association of County Boards of Developmental Disabilities.

The bill as amended by the committee moves one existing restriction — that a budget commission cannot decrease a levy within one year of the vote that approved it — to a five-year period for all levies and adds definitions for “unnecessary collections” and “excessive collections,” language sponsors said was drawn from the governor’s property-tax study commission.

The changes matter to local governments and service providers because county board levies fund local services and — in the case of county boards of developmental disabilities (DD) — provide a large share of the local match for Medicaid waiver funding that supports home and community-based services.

“While we have stated our strong opposition to House Bill 309, to the as-introduced version, the bill effectively, at that time, gave a 3 person body the power to override the will of thousands or tens of thousands…