BY LUCY MAY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Statewide real property tax collections during five of the past six years were the largest ever in Ohio, according to a new study by the Ohio Public Expenditure Council.
But the study found wide differences among the increases that Ohio counties saw over the past 10 years.
Delaware County near Columbus, for example, nearly tripled its tax collections over the past decade, while Paulding County, in the state's northwest corner, saw only 11 percent growth since 1987.
In Southwest Ohio, booming Warren County saw a 182 percent increase in collections since 1987. Hamilton County collections grew 113 percent in that time, and Clermont County saw a 145 percent increase.
Ohio's average statewide increase was 102 percent.
Increases between 1987 and 1997 are the result of rate increases, growth and reappraisal and update cycles, said Ohio Public Expenditure Council President Donald C. Berno.
"It's a rough barometer of where the economic development is," Mr. Berno said.
Many of the counties with the lowest percentage increases are in southeast Ohio, where the state's coal mines used to be, he said.
Increases in real property taxes in Ohio's eight largest cities ranged from 16.5 percent in Youngstown to 138.9 percent in Columbus from 1987 to 1997. Cincinnati had the second largest increase at 121.5 percent during the 10-year period.
The state's eight largest cities account for nearly 20 percent of the state's real property taxes, which include agricultural and residential property, commercial, industrial, mineral and public utility real property taxes.
Many of the counties with smaller increases in tax collections also have the most limited funding for schools, said William Phillis, executive di rector of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding, the group of school districts that sued the state over its school funding mechanism.
Ruled unconstitutional
The Ohio Supreme Court last year ruled that funding mechanism unconstitutional and singled out as a problem the heavy reliance on local property taxes to fund schools.
Mr. Berno argues his study looks at tax collections rather than the relative value of property in Ohio's counties and, as a result, shouldn't be used in relation to the school funding issue.
Mr. Phillis said while there is no direct correlation between tax growth and the relative wealth of school districts, school districts typically get between 70 percent and 75 percent of local property tax revenues.
So school districts whose tax collections haven't gone up much "have less fiscal capacity to operate schools than 10 years ago," he said as he studied a map plotting the counties' tax collection increases over the past decade.
"This map really demonstrates why, I think, the court said that you ought to eliminate the high dependence on property taxes for school funding," he said.
No link, critics say
But Richard Levin, a Columbus researcher specializing in state budget and tax policy, likened linking the council's latest study to school funding issues to comparing apples and oranges.
Property-wealthy school districts could have experienced low growth over the past decade, he said, or property-poor school districts could have seen large growth but still be poor.
Mr. Berno said his council plans to study further the specifics of school funding.
