Columbus Dispatch
GOP tax plan unpopular in schools
By Jim Siegel
Saturday June 22, 2013 

Public-school advocates asked lawmakers yesterday to keep in place the state’s decades-long practice of picking up 12.5 percent of the cost of new levies. 

As part of a new GOP tax package that includes significant income-tax cuts, a quarter-percent bump in the state sales-tax rate and a smaller commercial-activities-tax exemption for businesses, the state no longer would pay a portion of new levies. 

Associations representing superintendents, treasurers and school boards said they don’t like the proposal, arguing that it will make it more difficult to pass levies because they will cost taxpayers more. They also wanted to be sure the change would not take place until 2014, so as not to impact November levies, and were given assurance that is the intent. 

The elimination of the12.5 percent property-tax rollback would cost a homeowner $4.38 per mill for every $100,000 in taxable property value. A person with a $200,000 home would pay $44 a year more than he would pay under current law for a new 5-mill levy. 

Covering a portion of local property taxes has been a steadily growing state expense that is expected to top $2.3 billion over the next two years just for schools… 

Read the rest of the article at the Columbus Dispatch