Auditor: $84M allotted

No REA fee collection results in additional $1.74M to Lake County communities, schools

Lake County Auditor Christopher A. Galloway recently announced that his office has distributed a total of $84,954,186 to local governments and school districts as part of the second half settlement of tax collections.

In addition, Galloway announced that his office will not be collecting approximately $1.74 million in Real Estate Assessment fees from the second half collection.

“I believe my office has budgeted conservatively enough to be able to handle our statutorily required duties without needing additional funds in 2020,” Galloway said.

“As such, I am pleased to announce that we will not be collecting the Real Estate Assessment fees from tax collections for the second half of the year. This will put more money into our schools and local governments.”

According to Ohio law, the county auditor retains a small percentage of taxes collected to apply to the Real Estate Assessment fund, which is one source of funding for county auditor operations.

The office has refunded or not collected over $2.5 million in Real Estate Assessment revenue in 2020. Those funds have gone directly

back to Lake County schools, cities, townships and villages, Galloway confirmed.

“We have completed second half settlement early,” he said. “Statutorily, we had until Sept. 4, but completed our processes early.

“This is a function of having resolved the (tax disbursement) issues my office experienced due to a software conversion and data migration which began in 2018 and carried into 2019, however 2020 has gone well.”