CHARDON, Ohio — Geauga County residents have recently gotten their new property market values, and there's both good news and bad news for homeowners.
The good news is the average property value has gone up 30%, which is great if you're ready to sell your home, but the bad news is property taxes are also going to go up.
"Make no mistake about it — 30% is a huge increase," Geauga County Auditor Charles Walder told 3News of the reevaluations. "I've lived in Geauga for 37 years. I've never seen anything like it."
Walder explained that the real estate market is robust right now, with high demand for houses but not as many homes for sale. Many residents are concerned about property taxes, though.
Property taxes are broken into inside millage, which are unvoted, and outside millage, which are voted on by residents. The inside millage portion of the taxes will go up in direct proportion to home valuation increase.
It's an unvoted tax permitted by the Ohio constitution, capped at 10 mils total. This 10 mils is split 25% to the county, 30% to local government, and 45% to school districts.
Inside millage is calculated at $35 for every $100,000 of appraised value. Walder says much of the overall property tax amount, or the outside millage, won't be finalized until the state department of taxation reviews newly passed school levies.
He adds many people should expect significant overall property tax increases when those final amounts — including both inside and outside millage — are out in January.
"Because of the amount of the reevaluation, it will be substantial, and that is a huge fear I have," he expressed. "Many people could be in effect taxed out of their homes. Everyone in general is in a mode right now where I think not a lot of us can afford an increase in taxes. We're paying more money for gasoline, more money for food, more money for groceries. When is it going to end?"
According to Walder, a problem with recent school levies in the outside millage is that when Geauga County residents voted "yes" on them — and their corresponding millages — these new property reevaluations hadn't come out, meaning they said yes to levies not knowing there'd be such a spike in home valuation on the way. Walder believes this is unfair, and has been talking to other county auditors about how they can pressure state lawmakers to relieve taxpayers.
"We are trying to move legislative actions to do long-term solutions to prevent this from happening again and to suppress it going forward," he shared. "In addition to that, I am personally reaching out to all beneficiaries of this inside millage windfall and I'm begging them and asking them to please look at this through the eyes of the taxpayer. Don't look at this through your entity; consider the person who's writing the check to you. They did not expect this bill."
Walder says the Geauga County commissioners and about 70% of local governments in the county have resolved to lessen how much property tax money they'll get in order to help out taxpayers. On Monday, he met with county school districts to see if they're willing to take less money as well to relieve homeowners.
Walder also told WKYC that last week, he was in Columbus at the County Auditor's Association of Ohio's winter conference, in which dozens of county auditors were present. He says one idea that floated amongst them is asking lawmakers to pass a tax reduction initiative, which would be the state government effectively taking on some of the burden of these increasing property taxes.
To get an estimate on your inside millage property taxes, you can visit the Geauga County Auditor's website.