Good use of Dewine’s veto pen

Why does the governor have a line-item veto? In part, to prevent the mischievous language slipped into the two-year state budget last week as the legislative conference committee completed its work. The provision granted a substantial and unwarranted reduction in property taxes to the residents of Hunting Valley, a wealthy community in suburban Cleveland. Fortunately, officials of the Orange City Schools spotted the problem, and Gov. Mike Dewine stepped up with his veto pen.

This is what can happen when lawmakers rush to pull together the details of a budget involving some 3,000 pages. The temptation arises to serve narrow interests.

In this instance, as described by Andrew J. Tobias of cleveland.com in an article posted on Friday, residents of Hunting Valley long have been unhappy with the property taxes they pay. They send a relative few students to the Orange schools, and thus see themselves paying a disproportionate share of the property tax revenues. The district also includes Pepper Pike, Woodmere and Moreland Hills. Hunting Valley wants relief, and that is what the late-arriving and littledebated provision provided.

The relief would come by way of limiting, or capping, the property taxes they

would pay on a per-pupil basis, those fewer students translating to lower tax bills. This wasn’t something that mysteriously surfaced, though Orange district officials did not receive a timely heads-up. As Tobias reported, the Republican leadership of the Ohio Senate, including Matt Dolan of Chagrin Falls, the chairman of the Finance Committee, supported the provision.

Residents tapped for assistance the Batchelder Company, a lobbying firm affiliated with William Batchelder, a former House speaker.

How much revenue would the school district lose? One estimate put the amount at $3.2 million; another cited $5.8 million, in other words, big money on the eve of the school year. School officials had reason to be alarmed. There also is an unseemliness to the provision.

Consider that Hunting Valley is among the wealthiest communities in the state, with a median home value of $1.3 million. So residents pay large property tax bills.

At the same time, the Ohio Department of Education generates a helpful number, the “local tax effort index.” According to the state, the index “tends to reflect the extent of the effort residents of school districts make in supporting public elementary and secondary education.” It compares the level of support with the capacity to pay. The average effort is 1. Hunting Valley rated 0.49 last year, or half the effort of the average school district. The index for similar districts is 0.57.

Hunting Valley carries a lesser burden. For instance, the tax effort in the Cleveland city schools is 0.99. The Akron Public Schools rates 1.5, residents with a burden three times larger than Hunting Valley. What also belongs in the discussion is that tax cuts in recent years, at the state and federal levels, have heavily benefited wealthier households.

It is hard to look past another aspect of what Tobias reported: This village of 700 people has contributed roughly $1.4 million in political money, mostly to Republicans, since 2016. The criticism often goes that tax cuts are about rewarding donors. That is the impression this episode invites.

In the end, the governor struck the provision, rightly noting the inequity, taxpayers with similar property values in a school district paying at different rates. The language was designed to help Hunting Valley, yet others may have sought to exploit it. Now that is off the table, reinforcing the value of the governor’s line-item veto and the careful attention required when a conference committee puts the final touches on a state budget.