A Burgeoning Property Tax Rebellion

MIDDLEBURG HEIGHTS, Ohio—At a petition table inside a Cleveland area gun show on a drizzly Saturday afternoon, citizens talk of an American Dream derailed.

There’s the elderly couple who paid off their mortgage decades ago but can’t afford the property taxes on their home. Their local government, theoretically, can seize the property and auction it off to someone else if the annual bills remain unpaid.

Then there’s the recent retiree who took a part-time job at Lowe’s to pay property taxes on his rental property and avoid raising his tenants’ rent.  

Add empty nesters who can’t downsize to smaller houses because interest rates are too high, farmers describing an impossible situation, and recent college graduates groaning about moving further away from home to an affordable place.

Show-goers pause at Beth Blackmarr’s table on their way out and share those concerns. If 413,000 residents throughout the Buckeye State sign a petition before July 1, a public vote to eliminate local property taxes will appear on the November ballot.

“We are really hurting in Ohio,” she told The Epoch Times. “People never thought they’d be in this situation.”

Ohio isn’t alone. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia already have limits on annual local property tax levy increases, and leaders in Florida and Texas are pursuing additional legislation to limit government “flexibility” in how it raises revenues, according to a September report from McKinsey and Co., a global management consulting firm whose clients include state and local governments.

Schools, already strapped for cash, hang in the balance. School districts struggle with declining student enrollment, unfunded mandates, state and federal aid loss largely due to skyrocketing Medicaid costs, and spiking employee health insurance costs.

Fed-up homeowners say it’s high time to try another way to pay their community’s civil servants, perhaps through higher sales tax or state income tax rates, along with slashing administrative bloat in schools and city halls.

“Let the state find a way where 100 percent of the population pays for education,” Ron Shumate, one of Blackmarr’s volunteers from suburban Cincinnati, told The Epoch Times. “They give profit-making businesses a break, but not us.”

School Budget Woes

More than one-third of U.S. public school funding comes from local property taxes, while the remainder comes from state and federal aid, as well as municipal and state sales taxes, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Some states also apply lottery and gambling revenues.

All told, K–12 spending across the country now exceeds $1 trillion, the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University reported on April 23.

It also said public per-student spending ranges from about $11,000 in Idaho to more than $31,887 in the District of Columbia. Staffing and school tax rates continue to increase in most districts, while student enrollment decreases.

In addition to school tax increase caps and percentage limits on the taxable value of a property, many states, including Ohio, offer slight discounts to low-income households, particularly those owned by seniors who rely on Social Security.

Typical state and federal aid formulas are based on enrollment, so districts must either cut costs or raise local taxes to offset the decreasing amount of per-student aid. 

The dependence on $189 billion in federal COVID-19 pandemic relief money, which prompted massive hiring sprees but is now exhausted, has exacerbated the financial crisis in many districts that serve low-income communities with large populations of special-needs students.

The Buffalo, New York, city school district, for example, added 900 workers between 2018 and 2025—including a 569 percent increase in administrative and central office employees—even though enrollment decreased by 11 percent, or 3,679 students, according to the Edunomics Lab.

Buffalo City School District officials previously told The Epoch Times that they implemented a four-year plan to eliminate more than 400 positions, mostly through attrition, and close two school buildings after 2026.

Nationally, public K–12 enrollment decreased by about 900,500 students in the past decade, while staffing increased by about 700,000, or 11.9 percent, according to the Edunomics Lab.

In Western Massachusetts, voters in the South Hadley school district on April 14 rejected an override proposition that would raise property taxes by up to 50 percent to maintain all current staffing and programs. 

Now, school leaders there are poised to cut several administrator and teaching jobs, Advanced Placement courses, music classes, and all sports and extracurricular activities, according to documents on the district website.

Members of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance citizens’ group celebrated the outcome.

“People are tired of being taxed to death and seeing the money stolen,” a supporter posted on the group’s Facebook page.

—Aaron Gifford; Stacy Robinson

BOOKMARKS

The U.S. military destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted cruise missiles on May 4, as part of its operation to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. President Donald Trump has warned Iran that any interference with the operation, dubbed “Project Freedom,” will be met with a strong response. 

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy expects gas prices to fall “immediately” after the Strait of Hormuz is fully reopened. Oil prices rose again on Monday, with Brent crude climbing above $111 per barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate topping $105 in morning trading.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said on May 4 that it would soon unveil a “historic settlement that will directly affect the prices of proteins like chicken, pork, and turkey.” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the settlement was coming as part of a broader plan by the Trump administration to halt anticompetitive behavior in food pricing.

A Washington-based human rights organization has filed a federal complaint against the National Education Association (NEA), alleging the teachers’ union discriminated against its Jewish members. The group based its claim on incidents that allegedly took place during a meeting in Portland, including one where delegates laughed at the murder of a Holocaust survivor. 

Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed off on a new Congressional map in his state, giving the GOP an advantage in 28 out of 24 districts. “Our new map for 2026 makes good on my promise to conduct mid-decade redistricting, and it more fairly represents the makeup of Florida today,” DeSantis told Fox News.

—Stacy Robinson