Cuyahoga Heights superintendent: Ohio tax reforms won’t deliver district relief but will boost homeowner credit

Matt Young, superintendent of Cuyahoga Heights Schools, said recent property tax reform bills signed by the governor in December will not provide the district with the large-scale relief aimed at struggling Ohio districts but will increase homeowner protections that will benefit local residents.

The superintendent framed the changes as addressing four interconnected forces that have driven property taxes higher across Ohio, including a long-term decline in state school funding and sharp increases in home values. “Property taxes have been rising sharply in most communities,” Young said, and noted that state funding has fallen from about 47% of school budgets to roughly 37% over two decades.

Young described how a 1976 law commonly called House Bill 920 limits automatic tax increases unless a district’s tax rate falls to a 20-mill ‘‘floor,’’ at which point the protection can stop. He said that in 2023 roughly two-thirds of Ohio school districts (409 of 611) were at that floor for Class 1 residential and agricultural property, creating automatic tax increases in many places. “This is what the recent reform bills are trying to fix,” he said.

But Cuyahoga Heights, Young said, is not at the 20-mill floor and therefore still benefits from HB 920 protections. He pointed to two structural advantages for the district: a strong commercial tax base (74.67% of the district’s school property taxes came from businesses in fiscal year 2025, and 25.33% from residential homeowners) and a high assessed property valuation per pupil ($808,788 in FY2025 versus a state average of $295,379).

Young summarized the principal bills and their likely effects on CHS residents:

• House Bill 124 (the Flip the Script Act): Young said it gives county auditors final authority over property valuations and shifts the burden of proof to the state when valuations are challenged; he described the local impact as "unknown."

• House Bill 129: Young described this as closing loopholes by including emergency and substitute levies in the 20-mill floor calculation; he said this change is not applicable to Cuyahoga Heights and therefore has no local impact.

• House Bill 186: Young said this bill caps property tax increases at inflation for districts on the 20-mill floor and—critically for homeowners—raises the owner-occupancy credit from 2.5% toward 15.38% by 2029. "The owner occupancy credit component will impact CHS home owning residents," he said.

• House Bill 309: Young reported that HB 309 allows county budget commissions to reduce voter-approved levies they determine unnecessary or excessive (with a five-year protection after initial approval); he said the impact on CHS residents is unknown.

• House Bill 335: Young said HB 335 caps revenue increases on inside millage (the portion of property taxes under the 10-mil constitutional limitation) to the rate of inflation, providing additional protection starting with the county’s next triennial update.

Young emphasized that the district still depends on property tax funding and that the major relief in the package targets districts facing a fiscal crisis—conditions the superintendent said Cuyahoga Heights is not experiencing. "This reflects our district's financial strength, not a weakness," he said, while noting homeowners will still receive the benefit of the larger owner-occupancy credit and inside-millage inflation protections.

He also highlighted an important recent development: Governor Mike DeWine vetoed a provision in House Bill 96 that would have imposed strict cash carryover caps on school districts. Young characterized that veto as protecting the district’s reserves, saying that had the cap stood it could have forced the elimination of responsible reserves totaling nearly $8,000,000.

Young encouraged residents with property-specific questions to contact the Cuyahoga County Fiscal Office and said that for district-finance questions Treasurer Matthew Muccio and he remain available to provide "transparent, data-driven information." He noted a fuller analysis is available on the district website and closed by thanking listeners for their engagement.

The superintendent’s presentation is informational: it interprets how the listed House Bills would function relative to the district's existing tax position and directs residents to county and district offices for case-specific questions.