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My wife and I were in Ohio visiting family and decided to look at a home in Dublin that I've had my eye on (we are currently in South FL but I'm originally from Ohio). We really loved the house and considered putting an offer on it. Just one catch, the property taxes were $22,000 a year. Yeah, no thanks. No way in hell we're paying $1,800 a month in property taxes to live anywhere in Ohio. We currently pay about 1/4th of that to live in one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country (that also has very good schools).
Real estate taxes very greatly by jurisdiction in Ohio. Cities with large tax commercial and industrial bases have much lower real estate tax rates.
Some areas, perhaps such as Dublin, have serious improvement levies in effect, perhaps to build new schools, recreation centers, etc.
If the quality of infrastructure and services, and their age, were objectively compared with Dublin, I think any differences in real estate tax rates could easily be explained, especially if state funding was taken into account. Not knowing anything about where you live today, it's also hard to determine whether the schools where you live are actually as good as in Dublin. What is the per student spending in your district compared to Dublin??? Florida is notorious for inferior public schools.
Local districts also have raised real estate taxes because the Ohio Republicans in recent years have slashed school and local government funding, especially if adjusted for inflation. They also have slashed taxes on the wealthy. E.g., owners of pass-through entities such as most small businesses no longer pay Ohio income taxes on the pass-through income.
Outside of Columbus City schools, most of the local school systems here are excellent. And you pay for that in property taxes. And the funding from the Ohio Government has gone down in recent years, leading to more school levies to make up the difference. I live in Hilliard, and we just passed another school levy, the first since 2012. Our property taxes are through the roof, but it helps keep out the riff-raff. I don't even have kids, but I always vote for school levies. IT is important to the community.
With $22k in property taxes, I am guessing the home whitmeyer is looking at is around $1 Million or so. It boggles me one will not pay $22k in taxes, but will pay $1 Million for a home.
I would much prefer to pay taxes at the local level. It is more efficient than sending money to the state which will churn or redistribute a fair amount of it before it comes back to my district.
Different states finance services in different ways. Some rely on taxes Ohio does not have including personal property tax, automobile ownership tax, high automotive license fees, real estate transfer tax, etc.
Per pupil spending does not insure good schools. Socioeconomic status and parental interest are better predictors of school performance. Urban districts perform poorly despite outspending suburban and rural areas. Catholic schools have relatively low expenditures and high performance rates.
My wife and I were in Ohio visiting family and decided to look at a home in Dublin that I've had my eye on (we are currently in South FL but I'm originally from Ohio). We really loved the house and considered putting an offer on it. Just one catch, the property taxes were $22,000 a year. Yeah, no thanks. No way in hell we're paying $1,800 a month in property taxes to live anywhere in Ohio. We currently pay about 1/4th of that to live in one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country (that also has very good schools).
Normally I give a lecture about property taxes being deductible from your federal income taxes until your joint filing AGI is over $300K but I'll assume that is the case to afford a home that has $22K in property taxes.
At least you wouldn't be paying wind and flood insurance rates for south Florida.
What would a comparable house run in South Florida for mortgage and hurricane insurance?
Real estate taxes very greatly by jurisdiction in Ohio. Cities with large tax commercial and industrial bases have much lower real estate tax rates.
Some areas, perhaps such as Dublin, have serious improvement levies in effect, perhaps to build new schools, recreation centers, etc.
If the quality of infrastructure and services, and their age, were objectively compared with Dublin, I think any differences in real estate tax rates could easily be explained, especially if state funding was taken into account. Not knowing anything about where you live today, it's also hard to determine whether the schools where you live are actually as good as in Dublin. What is the per student spending in your district compared to Dublin??? Florida is notorious for inferior public schools.
Local districts also have raised real estate taxes because the Ohio Republicans in recent years have slashed school and local government funding, especially if adjusted for inflation. They also have slashed taxes on the wealthy. E.g., owners of pass-through entities such as most small businesses no longer pay Ohio income taxes on the pass-through income.
We live in Jupiter. The schools here are excellent. Taxes don't appear out of thin air; they're implemented by people voting for those taxes or through elected officials, i.e., people impose these taxes on themselves one way or another. I don't want to get off topic, but since you mentioned it - Ohio republicans cutting spending is not responsible for higher taxes. Decreasing spending is necessary if you want lower taxes. This is basic budgeting. One cannot have it both ways. One cannot have massive spending with low tax rates, especially when that massive spending outpaces consumer spending brought on by the fact that people have more money in their pocket. It's mathematically impossible in the long run, and sometimes in the short-term, too. Personally, I'd rather keep more of my money, mostly because government is inherently inefficient, wasteful, and bad at budgeting. YMMV.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clever nickname here
Normally I give a lecture about property taxes being deductible from your federal income taxes until your joint filing AGI is over $300K but I'll assume that is the case to afford a home that has $22K in property taxes.
At least you wouldn't be paying wind and flood insurance rates for south Florida.
What would a comparable house run in South Florida for mortgage and hurricane insurance?
We pay significantly less here. Roughly 1/4th of that $22K. Granted, our home here was appraised about $150,000 lower than the house we looked at in Dublin, but even based on an adjusted value, it's drastically cheaper here.
I don't want to get off topic, but since you mentioned it - Ohio republicans cutting spending is not responsible for higher taxes.
This is a patently false statement. Slashing state funding of local schools and governments did result in higher local real estate tax levies, including even 25 percent increases in the municipal income tax rates in Columbus and Cleveland.
Once prosperous communities, whose tax bases have been obliterated by horrible federal tax policies, such as East Cleveland and Lorain in northeast Ohio, have had to drastically slash services. East Cleveland can't even afford to buy new equipment, and relies on donations of used equipment from surrounding communities.
The obliteration of the local government funding for cities and villages, not as much for townships, by Ohio Republicans created huge holes in local government budgets, holes not able to be filled in poorer communities.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whitmeyer
Decreasing spending is necessary if you want lower taxes. This is basic budgeting. One cannot have it both ways. One cannot have massive spending with low tax rates, especially when that massive spending outpaces consumer spending brought on by the fact that people have more money in their pocket. It's mathematically impossible in the long run, and sometimes in the short-term, too. Personally, I'd rather keep more of my money, mostly because government is inherently inefficient, wasteful, and bad at budgeting. YMMV.
Wasteful spending such as the secretive, Republican-backed, JobsOhio fund which has diverted hundreds of millions of state tax revenues annually to private businesses in the form of outright grants? Why were local government funds diverted to such a give-away program for Republican political supporters? Ditto, regarding for-profit charter schools, if you ever read the exposes in the Dispatch and other Ohio newspapers.
You're right that you can't have it both ways. The Republicans have slashed income taxes on the wealthy in Ohio, while further impoverishing poor communities by gutting state aid. Ohio Republicans also have neglected infrastructure spending, paying for a significant part of it by unfairly burdening northern Ohio's economy by leveraging the Ohio Turnpike. The turnpike bonds will be paid for by future toll increases, a future hidden tax that you likely believe is "good budgeting."
Government isn't "inherently inefficient, wasteful, and bad at budgeting." It's politicians, such as IMO the current batch of Ohio Republicans, that can be wasteful and bad at budgeting.
The piper will be paid when Ohio finally is forced to raise taxes to pay for infrastructure, and when Ohio's future work forced is comprised of poorly educated individuals.
The OP laments local real estate taxes, understandable from someone from Florida, which, like Texas, serves as the role model for Ohio's current Republican politicians. Of course, unlike Ohio, Florida gets massive aid from the federal government. E.g., Florida will get hundreds of billions after a major earthquake in federal aid, even though many of the losses are due to poor state and local policies.
Per pupil spending does not insure good schools. Socioeconomic status and parental interest are better predictors of school performance. Urban districts perform poorly despite outspending suburban and rural areas. Catholic schools have relatively low expenditures and high performance rates.
You're correct that schools with better socioeconomic profiles will perform better than schools with bad socioeconomic profiles. It's also true that it costs more to educate students with special needs, including inadequate nourishment. Security costs are much higher in urban districts. Heck, Cleveland even has higher rates of lead poisoning than Flint, Michigan, greatly diminishing the intellectual potential of affected children, yet this isn't an urgent concern of Ohio's government.
Many suburban school districts have much higher per pupil expenditures than urban districts despite their much better socioeconomic profiles.
As for Catholic schools, their performance generally lags behind public schools with similar socioeconomic profiles. Parochial, non-parochial private schools, and even charter schools cherry pick student populations.
E.g., special needs students are left to public schools. The very high per student expenditures for special needs students reduces the average expenditures for non-special needs students in public schools, but this fact never is addressed by public school haters.
Why doesn't the state fund special needs students separately from public school budgets, allowing us to more accurately assess the efficiency of public schools vs. private schools?
Note the most charter schools in Ohio have had pathetic student achievement records, a fact that the Republicans have tried to cover up and certainly have ignored in establishing state educational policies.
You're correct that schools with better socioeconomic profiles will perform better than schools with bad socioeconomic profiles. It's also true that it costs more to educate students with special needs, including inadequate nourishment. Security costs are much higher in urban districts. Heck, Cleveland even has higher rates of lead poisoning than Flint, Michigan, greatly diminishing the intellectual potential of affected children, yet this isn't an urgent concern of Ohio's government.
Many suburban school districts have much higher per pupil expenditures than urban districts despite their much better socioeconomic profiles.
As for Catholic schools, their performance generally lags behind public schools with similar socioeconomic profiles. Parochial, non-parochial private schools, and even charter schools cherry pick student populations.
E.g., special needs students are left to public schools. The very high per student expenditures for special needs students reduces the average expenditures for non-special needs students in public schools, but this fact never is addressed by public school haters.
Why doesn't the state fund special needs students separately from public school budgets, allowing us to more accurately assess the efficiency of public schools vs. private schools?
Note the most charter schools in Ohio have had pathetic student achievement records, a fact that the Republicans have tried to cover up and certainly have ignored in establishing state educational policies.
Lots of inaccuracies and generalizations.
The state funding formula is complex and considers the economics of a district and the local ability to pay for their schools. Weighted funding formulas provide additional money for special needs, ESL and poorly proficient English students as well as more state aid to districts with a higher % of economically disadvantaged.
Catholic schools outperform public schools at a much lower cost.
Catholic schools outperform public schools at a much lower cost.
Bunk, if for no other reason than that Catholic and other private schools often jettison students with any educational difficulties, especially behavioral issues. This is well known by public school teachers who often are forced to deal with such rejects.
Provide some substantiation for your claim with adjustments for socioeconomic factors.
Just the fact that most students at Catholic schools have to pay tuition is a great differentiating factor.
There are many public school districts that outperform Catholic schools in AP classes, etc.
Adjusting for socioeconomic factors with propensity score matching, here's the conclusion of one study which demonstrates better results in public schools than Catholic schools. Consider that troublesome students that wouldn't be tolerated in parochial schools are required to be mainlined in public schools, demanding great instructional time commitments from teachers, and this is a remarkable achievement.
<<
Finally, what did they find when they used propensity score matching? The authors only looked at cross-sectional results of the fifth and eighth grade reading and math scores. As a result, no conclusions can be drawn about the longitudinal changes in test scores over time. Regardless of the type of matching used, propensity score matching results showed that Catholic primary schooling is associated with lower math scores. Only the results for nearest-neighbor matching will be reported here for brevity’s sake. Catholic school students scored 6.79 and 9.77 percentile points lower in eighth grade and fifth grade math, respectively. Catholic primary schooling had no statistically significant effect on eighth and fifth grade reading scores.
This, then, is Elder and Jepsen’s grand conclusion: as far as elementary school achievement goes, the Catholic advantage, on average, is illusive at best. This differs greatly from the conclusions drawn by looking at merely the average scores for Catholic and public school students, and illustrates why it was not a good idea for the National Catholic Education Association to point to average test scores as an indicator of the Catholic school advantage.>>
Public school students often learn to succeed in more diverse student body populations.
Indeed, one of the great risks of the proliferation of private and parochial schools is the Lebanonization of U.S. society. E.g., Ohio is a hotbed of Islamist charter schools. Do you think bodes well for American democracy?
If all students received an equal voucher, as some Republicans have proposed, some wealthy parents could supplement their vouchers with hefty tuition while public schools would be starved to death. The Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state also would effectively be killed.
<<Funding would be handed out on a flat per-pupil amount of $8,740, plus additional money for categories such as students who have special needs or are economically disadvantaged. That money would be paid to whichever school the student chooses to attend.>>
I doubt that there are many public school systems in Ohio, especially excellent ones, with per pupil funding of less than $9,000/student annually. Many Ohio public school systems with low per student expenditures are in rural areas, where teacher salaries are significantly lower than in urban areas with much higher costs of living.
BTW, I have no problem with open-enrollment public charter schools. These actually encourage competitive excellence without introducing religious or class cleavages into our society.
Those who advocate for reduced taxes too often are mostly interested in reducing their tax burden at the expense of those with less means. The eventual result -- Argentina or Venezuela, both heavily Catholic nations, as upward migration becomes a near impossibility.
Ohio's existing subsidies for educationally disadvantaged students likely are inadequate.
Do you know of any areas in the country that offer a lower cost of living AND lower taxes? I've read some articles that claim Texas is where it's at but when I browsed the real estate listings there everything looked expensive. I'd prefer to live in a city with a median house price of ~$100k and plentiful apartments I can find for around $500/mo.
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