Photo: Brian Massie of the Ohio Property Tax Elimination Committee. (WEWS)
LAKE COUNTY, Ohio — A grassroots effort to put a constitutional amendment eliminating property taxes on the November ballot in Ohio has failed. Now organizers say they are refocusing their efforts on 2027.
Brian Massie, campaign leader and co-founder of AxOHTax, announced Friday that the group had fallen tiny of its goal of collecting 620,000 signatures.
With the July 1 deadline to submit a petition to the Ohio Secretary of State, he and other volunteers decided to hold off – for now.
To qualify for the ballot, organizers had to submit 413,488 valid voter signatures. They were trying to collect a lot of extras because thousands of signatures are routinely thrown away during state verification.
“We thought we would need quite a buffer,” Massie told WEWS.
During a press conference in overdue April, Massie said the campaign had collected 305,000 signatures. He declined to provide the current amount on Friday.
“We are declaring war on lawmakers,” he said, describing some members of the General Assembly as callous and tardy to act. “And when you’re at war, you never give the enemy any intelligence. Giving them information – especially signature counts – is like giving them information.”
Massie and his co-organizers say they have lost trust in politicians in Columbus. They reflect outrage, especially among older taxpayers who feel overburdened and ignored.
The proposed constitutional amendment would completely abolish property taxes – on residential, commercial and industrial properties, and land.
The anti-tax movement is growing across the country as cash-strapped homeowners feel the pain of post-pandemic home price spikes, broader inflation and tax burdens. However, no state has completely eliminated property taxes.
Opponents say eliminating property taxes is a drastic move. Ohio governments would have to make deep cuts, significantly raise other types of taxes, or a combination of both to have any chance of making up the difference.
“In the end, this turns out to be a tax-shelter game, the biggest tax-shelter game imaginable,” Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Republican from Kirtland, said in an interview Friday. “Because yes, we can get rid of property taxes. But then the sales tax will have to be tripled. (…) Homeowners and individuals will start paying more tax, I think. Just different types of taxes. And that doesn’t really solve the problem.”
A coalition called Ohioans to Protect Public Services, which includes firefighters, police, teachers and librarians, released a statement Friday morning calling the effort to eliminate all property taxes “reckless” and pledging to continue fighting the effort.
“Local property taxes pay for the services Ohioans count on every day, including police, fire and emergency services, 911, public schools, senior services, child and disability services, to name a few,” Jen Detwiler, a representative of the coalition, said in a written statement.
“Eliminating two-thirds of local tax revenues overnight will not make these needs disappear – it forces our state to make impossible choices: severe cuts to local services, massive increases in sales and income taxes, or both.”
Massie said lawmakers in Columbus now have another year to prove they can make meaningful reforms while signature collection continues.
“We say, OK, let’s give lawmakers more time. And let’s see what they do,” he said, calling on lawmakers to cut spending and bureaucracy.
The General Assembly approved several tax breaks overdue last year, but homeowners are not yet feeling the effects of those changes.
The reforms included certain property tax credits and refunds, changes to school fee calculations, adjustments to the state review process for district reassessments, and increased oversight powers of district budget committees.
Lawmakers expect these updates to save homeowners between $2.4 billion and $3 billion over the next few years.
“Next month, when the tax bills come out, people will start to see it,” Cirino said of the impact. “Especially if you write a check twice a year to pay your property taxes, it’s going to be very visible to you. If you’re paying off a mortgage, you’re going to have to look a little harder for it than people who pay taxes directly.”
He said lawmakers are still discussing additional reforms. “We have a lot of bills in both the House and the Senate,” he said.
Cirino said he sympathizes with homeowners who are struggling.
But he’s clearly fed up with the anti-tax campaign – which has a long shot as it’s a volunteer-led initiative that’s been collecting signatures for just over a year. As signatures age, they are more likely to be rejected due to voters moving or dying.
“I’m not sure whether these people are delusional or not,” Cirino said, “but they didn’t do their homework. I don’t think they put the intellectual rigor into assessing this problem and finding the right solution.”
So far, Massie is unimpressed with the Legislature’s actions. And he sees the campaign’s shortcomings as a delay, not a failure.
“We will continue to collect these signatures. And we will prove Jerry Cirino wrong,” Massie said.
And will it happen next year? “My answer is that everything is in God’s hands,” he said.
Michelle Jarboe is a business growth and development reporter for News 5 Cleveland. Follow her on X @MJarboe or email her at Michelle.Jarboe@wews.com.
This article was originally published on News5Cleveland.com and are published in the Ohio Capital Journal under a content sharing agreement. Unlike other OCJ articles, it is not available for free republication on other news outlets because it is owned by WEWS in Cleveland.
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