Testimony

OHIO HOUSE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE
OPPOSITION TESTIMONY ON HOUSE BILL 309
Keary McCarthy, Executive Director
June 11, 2025

Chair Roemer, Vice Chair Thomas, Ranking Member Troy, and members of the Ohio House Ways and Means Committee, on behalf of the Ohio Mayors Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of mayors in Ohio’s 30 largest cities, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony and share our concerns.

As you know, HB 309 seeks to make significant changes to the roles and responsibilities of existing county budget commissions (CBC). This includes, but is not limited to, granting CBCs new authority to review and reduce voter-approved property tax levies of political subdivisions within a county. We appreciate that this authority is limited to property tax levies, but we have concerns related to how this new authority might be exercised and what, if any, jurisdictional limitations a CBC may have in exercising its authority.

HB 309 also includes additional language that is unrelated to property tax concerns and is inconsistent with the broader purpose of mitigating the taxpayer impact of local levies. This provision would change the approval status of the alternative LGF formula. Currently, an alternative formula must be approved by: 1) the county commissioners; 2) the legislative authority of the largest city; and 3) by a majority of the other municipalities and townships in the county (excluding the county’s largest city).

It is important to understand that this provision was originally put into place in 1981 after numerous disputes related to LGF distribution and it exists for two reasons:

• First, it ensures that the largest jurisdiction within a county – sometimes representing as much as 40 to 50 percent of the total county population – receive LGF dollars in a manner commensurate with the essential services it provides. Larger cities are often the most resource-intensive jurisdictions responsible for police, fire, and other critical public safety infrastructure that benefit the region.

• Second, requiring that the largest municipality also approve the formula was put in place to prevent the numerous smaller jurisdictions within a county from forming coalitions and creating an unfair advantage in the approval process. This would result in more of the CULGF being disproportionately allocated to the jurisdictions that provide the fewest services and serve the fewest county residents.

Requiring that the county, the largest city, and the majority of other jurisdictions approve the formula was seen as a compromise to help mitigate these concerns. If HB 309 removes the largest municipality from this approval authority, it will upend decades of precedent and renew old regional disputes over the distribution of the CULGF. As such, we respectfully request that this provision be removed from the bill.

Thank you for your time. I would be happy to answer any questions.