Speaker 1: People are mad as hell when they got that most
Speaker 1: recent tax bill, and people are really demanding answers and
Speaker 1: looking for solutions to how to solve the problems so
Speaker 1: we don't get whacked like that again. I understand you'd
Speaker 1: be talking about this at Thursday evening at the Empower
Speaker 1: Youth Seminar.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's correct, and you are absolutely correct. A lot
Speaker 2: of anger out there, and particularly with seniors on fixed incomes.
Speaker 2: You are right about that.
Speaker 1: So I understand there's a ten member joint committee on
Speaker 1: property tax reform you are heading it up. Are you
Speaker 1: looking for people to show up to offer their concerns,
Speaker 1: problems and solutions, or are you going to be providing
Speaker 1: information about potential legislative fixes what's going to take place.
Speaker 2: So I'm happy to go over elements of the report.
Speaker 2: And I should qualify this by saying I'm a co
Speaker 2: chair Representative Bill Romer, who's the House Ways and Means Chairman,
Speaker 2: And I should also clarify the Ways and Means Committee
Speaker 2: is the committee that deals with taxes. I chair the
Speaker 2: Senate Ways and Means Committee. I think at this point
Speaker 2: the focus is going to be more on what we
Speaker 2: should be doing going forward and Admittedly, you know, myself
Speaker 2: and other members of the General Assembly, we didn't wait
Speaker 2: for the report to come out before we started dropping
Speaker 2: legislation in attempts to address this, even last General Assembly.
Speaker 2: So but I also hope to like clear up some
Speaker 2: you know, misconceptions with with what's going on, what we
Speaker 2: can and can't do. You know, a good example of
Speaker 2: that is, you know, people will say, well, why can't
Speaker 2: you just freeze property taxes? And you know a big
Speaker 2: issue with that is, well, a lot of these provisions
Speaker 2: in the constitutions, so you'd have to go to the
Speaker 2: ballot in order to repeal them, if you if that
Speaker 2: was something that we were going to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, and my what are the springboards? And this has
Speaker 1: to be the Supreme Court case from I guess two
Speaker 1: decades ago declaring that the funding of schools was unconstitution
Speaker 1: Yet there's been no change that the line's share of
Speaker 1: our property taxes is goes to the schools.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so now you know where I'll be going
Speaker 2: in this budget discussion. You're right, in fact, when as
Speaker 2: introduced budget passes and there's some nuance to this. But
Speaker 2: if that let's say that passes, and is our school
Speaker 2: funding formula going forward, the state versus local share split
Speaker 2: will be lower than it actually was during d'olf, So,
Speaker 2: in other words, that during d'off I think it was
Speaker 2: in the low forties, So, in other words, forty percent
Speaker 2: of the funding came from the state, sixty from locals.
Speaker 2: If this school funding formula goes through, it'll be, I
Speaker 2: believe in the load of mid thirties. So obviously we
Speaker 2: need to, you know, fix that. And for what it's worth,
Speaker 2: the formula that is being phased in, if we fully
Speaker 2: phased it in, it is, in my least in my estimation,
Speaker 2: a fully constant formula. I think you'd find the school
Speaker 2: districts would say the same thing. But yes, you are,
Speaker 2: You are absolutely right that that is a huge piece
Speaker 2: of this in the sense that if you do more
Speaker 2: at the state level, it's not like school districts like
Speaker 2: going to the ballot. I think there'd be a lot
Speaker 2: less pressure to.
Speaker 1: Do so, okay, so fewer levees, then fewer tax levee
Speaker 1: ballot initiatives. Absolutely, well, that's I'm sure that it sounds
Speaker 1: like that's going to be welcome for my listening audience,
Speaker 1: and of late, most of them get shot down because
Speaker 1: people's property tax burden is just you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's too challenging, so they're less likely to vote to
Speaker 1: maybe vote for a levee that is actually needed. Some
Speaker 1: view them as not unneeded in many cases. But that's
Speaker 1: up to our voters to decide. But now, how will
Speaker 1: this help in terms of tax relief for the taxpayer?
Speaker 1: Since the fundamental issue is here the bottom line, what
Speaker 1: do we have to pay in terms of taxes?
Speaker 2: If you're you're looking at fixing the school funding formula,
Speaker 2: that would be something that I would say is more
Speaker 2: in the future, a fix that would be more future
Speaker 2: looking and it's not going to offer immediate relief. But
Speaker 2: that said, there are a number of bills in the
Speaker 2: General Assembly, some of which I carry, that would offer
Speaker 2: immediate relief. I still maintain the three best ideas are
Speaker 2: one the property tax circuit breaker to an expanded homestead exemption,
Speaker 2: and three a property tax deferral program and some other
Speaker 2: states do that. To give you an idea, how that
Speaker 2: works is that the state creates a large fund and
Speaker 2: you apply, and let's say you're a senior on fixed income,
Speaker 2: for example, your property taxes would be free at their
Speaker 2: current level, and the state would then take on the
Speaker 2: burden as they continue to go up. But then either
Speaker 2: when you pass away or sell the home, the state
Speaker 2: would then recoup the lost out revenue via a lean
Speaker 2: on the property.
Speaker 1: That seems logical. I mean that mechanism at least the
Speaker 1: state is not out this money completely, like it's some
Speaker 1: sort of government program to just pay for things for people,
Speaker 1: but you get the money back when the house is
Speaker 1: sold or the estate is disposed.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right, I mean, it was. The basic gist
Speaker 2: of it is that if you have a lot of
Speaker 2: equity in your home, which a lot of seniors do,
Speaker 2: they're able to tap into that early, which I think
Speaker 2: the vast majority of them would say, we're totally for that.
Speaker 1: All right. The lean would be established upfront, so they
Speaker 1: couldn't so get like a second mortgage and get all
Speaker 1: the equity out of the home and leave in debt.
Speaker 2: Correct. And there's a lot of guardrails that would have
Speaker 2: to be in place for this. But the state, the
Speaker 2: state that did this, well, there's two of them that
Speaker 2: did it. One is Maine, the other's Minnesota. The draft
Speaker 2: that I have is based on Maine, though I have
Speaker 2: not introduced that at this moment because it was well
Speaker 2: at the time, there was some talk of which who
Speaker 2: who pays for the fund, and you know, my contention was,
Speaker 2: let's do this at the state level. There were others
Speaker 2: that would say, we'll have this done at the county level.
Speaker 2: H it's we're still trying to negotiate that.
Speaker 1: I see. Now you mentioned the circuit breaker. Can you
Speaker 1: explain that to my audience.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, the way the circuit breaker operates is people
Speaker 2: property taxes are you know, hated by people because they're
Speaker 2: not tied in any way to your ability to pay. Right.
Speaker 2: So most seniors feel this when they, you know, they
Speaker 2: retire and then all of a sudden twenty years later,
Speaker 2: their fixed income is eroded, but yet their property taxes
Speaker 2: keep rising and they find themselves unable to pay. What
Speaker 2: the property tax circuit breaker does is caps the amount
Speaker 2: of property taxes that you pay at a percentage of
Speaker 2: your income. So, in other words, if you're making fifty
Speaker 2: grand a year in retirement, the percentage in the bill
Speaker 2: that we introduced is fixed at five percent. If you
Speaker 2: go if your property tax burden rises above five percent
Speaker 2: of your income, the circuit breaks and then the state
Speaker 2: starts taking on the additional burden for that, so you
Speaker 2: basically will never pay more property taxes than in theory
Speaker 2: you can afford with that. The drawback of it is
Speaker 2: excuse me, it's an expensive program. But a colleague of
Speaker 2: mind introduced legislation last GA that made this revenue neutral.
Speaker 2: We paid for it by going after a number of
Speaker 2: what we would consider corporate welfare piesis of statute that
Speaker 2: really needed to be reworked in order to provide relief
Speaker 2: to seniors in this way. Actually, although that I shouldn't
Speaker 2: say that that's relegated to just seniors. This would be
Speaker 2: everybody within reason. I mean, there are guardrails. If you
Speaker 2: have a two million dollar home and a half a
Speaker 2: million dollar salary and retirement, yeah, that the circuit breaker
Speaker 2: is not going to apply to you fair enough.
Speaker 1: And then the homestead expansion, just briefly, how does that work.
Speaker 2: So right now the homestead exemption is now there's an
Speaker 2: income limit and there's a benefit. So broadly speaking, the
Speaker 2: benefit is a dollar amount that comes off your valuation.
Speaker 2: So if you have a two hundred thousand dollars home,
Speaker 2: homestead exemption is under thirty grand. But now it's adjusted
Speaker 2: for inflation. So for ease of example, let's say it's
Speaker 2: twenty five grand your home's value at two hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: Let's say you qualify, you're a senior over sixty five,
Speaker 2: disabled veteran, there's some other widow of a disabled veteran.
Speaker 2: You get that twenty five thousand off. So the valuation
Speaker 2: of your home for tax purposes goes down to one
Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five thousand, and you pay taxes on that.
Speaker 2: So it's not a huge benefit. But the caveat is
Speaker 2: that you can only get this if your income is
Speaker 2: less than about thirty six thousand per year, which really
Speaker 2: cuts off the vast majority of Ohioans. Not only that
Speaker 2: it was universal at one point, so there are some
Speaker 2: folks that make significantly more that are grandfathered in. But
Speaker 2: in all cases it's really not the best benefit. So
Speaker 2: the idea is with this legislation is to say, look
Speaker 2: at this as a percentage of what you're actually taxed.
Speaker 2: So if you pay over the course of a year
Speaker 2: six thousand in property taxes and you qualify at the
Speaker 2: lowest level, you might get twenty percent off your property taxes.
Speaker 2: So if you're paying six thousand, you would be getting
Speaker 2: a twelve thousand dollars benefit from the state. However, as
Speaker 2: your income rises, that percentage drops. It's like a progressively
Speaker 2: declining curve, so that you know, by the time you
Speaker 2: hit one hundred and some thousand or more, you're not
Speaker 2: getting any benefit. But the nice part about this is
Speaker 2: is that since it's tied to median income and tied
Speaker 2: to percentage of the property taxes that you actually pay,
Speaker 2: if you're a senior on fixed income, that you know
Speaker 2: you're right at the line towards the top. When you retire,
Speaker 2: you actually start walking back up the curve as you're
Speaker 2: our fixed income is eroded away, so your benefit actually
Speaker 2: grows over time, which I think is a great way
Speaker 2: to do this, and I think it would be significantly cheaper,
Speaker 2: although we're still trying to find the cost estimate for this.
Speaker 2: But again, the homestead exemption only applies to generally speaking,
Speaker 2: people over the age of sixty five.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you're concerned about your property taxes,
Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about this
Speaker 1: and more lengthy conversation with Senator Bill Blessing taking place
Speaker 1: Thursday night, that's March thirteenth, coming up seven pm. Is
Speaker 1: beginning again Martice Thompson on what the eighteen fifty one
Speaker 1: center con law is doing. That'll start at seven and
Speaker 1: bill will take over at seven thirty for a full hour.
Speaker 1: Now I just make pivot over real quick here. You
Speaker 1: are one of the bipartisan sponsors are behind the bill
Speaker 1: to pay for students to have a free breakfast and
Speaker 1: lunch at school. Can you explain your motivations behind this
Speaker 1: and how much is it going to cost? I have
Speaker 1: to observe, this doesn't sound like a thing usually a
Speaker 1: Republican would embrace. So what's the motive? The motive behind this?
Speaker 1: And I've had some of my listeners say that out loud.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm asking you on their behalf. But in
Speaker 1: this as the way the article reads from the Ohio
Speaker 1: Capital Journal, this is a free lunch and breakfast for
Speaker 1: all students.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's correct. So let me let me step back
Speaker 2: for a moment. It's it's the cost of this. So
Speaker 2: this is a Senate bill one oh nine for those
Speaker 2: who want to research democrat out again per fiscal year.
Speaker 2: But I have to add a caveat to that because
Speaker 2: there's been some confusion for folks who have reached out
Speaker 2: to my office and have said, well, you know, we
Speaker 2: pay enough in property taxes for school, we don't want
Speaker 2: to pay more property taxes for this. Very briefly, this
Speaker 2: will not raise your property taxes. This would be entirely
Speaker 2: state funded. And you know, once again, like the property
Speaker 2: tax circuit breaker, we had a bill last General Assembly
Speaker 2: that made this revenue neutral, so it was already paid for.
Speaker 2: But the advocates of this particular program, in light of
Speaker 2: the fact that we're in budget season, wanted something introduced
Speaker 2: for public inspection, and they wanted it clean, no other
Speaker 2: elements in there, which admittedly, the bill that we had
Speaker 2: last year that paid for this was what I would
Speaker 2: consider sort of a mini budget. But the motivation for
Speaker 2: this is simple that when you look at a lot
Speaker 2: of the administrative burdened behind doing something like this with
Speaker 2: respect to free and reduced lunch, that adds a significant
Speaker 2: cost to this, and in the end, it's actually pretty
Speaker 2: cheap just to have it universal and and a lot
Speaker 2: of the stigma behind this, which is one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why we're doing this. But more importantly, I think
Speaker 2: that it's also something that I think will reduce truancy
Speaker 2: because the income liment for free and reduced lunch aren't
Speaker 2: exactly high. There's a lot of lower middle class parents
Speaker 2: that would be included in this. Beyond that, when we
Speaker 2: talk about tax cuts at the state, at the state level,
Speaker 2: and we have a number of people, you know that
Speaker 2: that look at a top rate income tax cut and
Speaker 2: they're like, well, how does this benefit us? It really
Speaker 2: it really doesn't. And we as families pay a significant
Speaker 2: amount of money to raise our children. And yes, I
Speaker 2: understand that not everybody has children, and.
Speaker 1: You know, but.
Speaker 2: This would be a significant benefit to families, which frankly,
Speaker 2: you know, my party, Republican Party, we pay a lot
Speaker 2: of lip service to and for parents. I have universally
Speaker 2: heard on both sides of the aisle that they liked
Speaker 2: this idea because it you know, it's a tax cut
Speaker 2: to them, and at the same time, it also absolves
Speaker 2: them of a lot of things that are quite difficult
Speaker 2: actually as parents. I mean I have three boys myself,
Speaker 2: and you know, packing the lunch in the evening for them,
Speaker 2: you know, getting them up and getting them breakfast in
Speaker 2: the morning, that all would be taken care of at
Speaker 2: the school. And it actually achieves an economy of scale
Speaker 2: from that standpoint, So it's expensive obviously for parents to
Speaker 2: you know, buy school lunches and breakfasts and prepare them
Speaker 2: at home. Having this done at the school level I
Speaker 2: think would be ultimately cheaper for parents and for the state.
Speaker 2: So yes, I do understand that there are people that
Speaker 2: disagree with this. They think, you know, this is more
Speaker 2: government in their lives. But bear in mind that with
Speaker 2: respect to you know, the idea of a common good,
Speaker 2: I mean, we do have that in K through twelve
Speaker 2: public schools, where you are constitutionally guaranteed a public education
Speaker 2: in this state. There's a lot of research about kids
Speaker 2: struggling to learn if they're not well fed. This makes
Speaker 2: an attempt to bolster our public education system. So in
Speaker 2: other words, your education is already free in the sense
Speaker 2: at the point of sale. I mean, the state does
Speaker 2: pay for it, and so do property taxes. Adding school
Speaker 2: lunches to this is in my opinion, the logical next step.
Speaker 1: Okay, I just some people say, well, listen, you know,
Speaker 1: folks on life's margins, they had the SNAP program. They're
Speaker 1: capable of buying food and preparing lunch. You know, my
Speaker 1: mom will always packed me a lunch, and she got
Speaker 1: to select what we ate. The food offerings at school
Speaker 1: weren't exactly the best when I was going to school,
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what sort of nutritional guidelines you're
Speaker 1: going to have on this, but i'd like to think
Speaker 1: if you're going to be providing a free lunch to everybody,
Speaker 1: at least it will be subject to maybe some sort
Speaker 1: of RFK junior type quality of foods as opposed to
Speaker 1: the stuff that we're normally accustomed to in a school
Speaker 1: lunch line.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are rules to it now. They're supposed to
Speaker 2: be somewhat healthy. Don't have the details on the top
Speaker 2: of my head on that, but you know, certainly we
Speaker 2: can make that more strict at the state level if
Speaker 2: we need to. But even then, in the end, having
Speaker 2: a kid fed is in my opinion, better than having
Speaker 2: them not fed and trying to sit through class just
Speaker 2: thinking about one and only thing, which is I need
Speaker 2: to eat. But you're right, I don't. I mean, I
Speaker 2: for what it's worth, I think there would be a
Speaker 2: lot of local outcry if if the schools school districts,
Speaker 2: for example, decided that, you know, we're just going to
Speaker 2: serve donuts in the morning because that's cheap processed food.
Speaker 2: I just you know, to the extent that we need
Speaker 2: to at guardrails, that's fine, but I just I struggle
Speaker 2: to believe that they would go ahead and do that.
Speaker 2: And oh there's real real quick. One thing I did
Speaker 2: forget to say about this. This isn't just public schools.
Speaker 2: This would also be you know, chartered on public So
Speaker 2: your Catholic schools would be would be receiving this as.
Speaker 1: Well, all right, but not not homeschools.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no right, that's correct, and
Speaker 2: you would you would want some sort of physical presence. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right.
Speaker 1: Senator Bill Blessing. Do you have widespread support for this?
Speaker 1: Is this a sure thing that's going to go through
Speaker 1: or is there going to be some pushback from.
Speaker 2: Oh there's pushback, so from at the legislative level. That's
Speaker 2: where I've gotten the most pushback. So the governor has
Speaker 2: said that he supports this, but says we we can't
Speaker 2: afford it, which I challenge him on that because we
Speaker 2: you know, in the budget we do have that five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars childcare tax credit piece. There's you know a
Speaker 2: number of other provisions that he's trying to do for
Speaker 2: families that probably have similar costs. Just the choice of
Speaker 2: what we want to do. The bigger concern is uh,
Speaker 2: Speaker Matt Huffman, who I don't believe that he wants
Speaker 2: to do it. He made he made the argument that, well,
Speaker 2: you know, they get these free breakfasts and lunches, they
Speaker 2: may not want them. The kids are just going to
Speaker 2: throw them away, and that's going to lead to a
Speaker 2: lot of food waste. And I kind of chuckled, Well,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't. You can you can lead a
Speaker 2: horse to water, you can't make them drink. I remember
Speaker 2: in grade school myself a number of times that I
Speaker 2: had a PB and J sandwich that turned into I
Speaker 2: guess a PB and J crepe Yuh. It was all
Speaker 2: smashed up and I would end up throwing it away
Speaker 2: because I'm not eating that. But you know, at least
Speaker 2: being paid to make the attempt, I think is worth it.
Speaker 2: And frankly, I'm sure there's a lot of food waste
Speaker 2: that you know, their parents have all the good intentions
Speaker 2: of giving them, you know, green beans, I think was
Speaker 2: the example that Speaker Huffman used. Uh, yeah, the kids
Speaker 2: see that and there there. You know, you'd hope that
Speaker 2: they would eat it, but chances are they may not.
Speaker 1: Oh that's why I suggested maybe healthy food options only
Speaker 1: in the free school lunch and they either you either
Speaker 1: eat it or you don't. You know, there's got to
Speaker 1: be some tough love in the room if we're looking
Speaker 1: out for our children's self. We do have a massive
Speaker 1: obesity crisis in this country. Senator Bill Blessing, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for spending time with my listeners of me today.
Speaker 1: Look forward to the Empower You Seminar again Thursday, beginning
Speaker 1: at seven pm. Empower Youamerica dot org. Register and either
Speaker 1: attend live or log in from the comfort of your
Speaker 1: own home. Thanks for spending the time with us today,
Speaker 1: Senator Blessing
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, Brian, have a good one you too,