Dear Taxpayers,
In 2024, a full reappraisal was conducted for all real estate parcels in Ottawa County. A full reappraisal occurs
every six years as mandated by Ohio Revised Code. As result of that reappraisal, property values increased by
an average of about 33.5% county-wide.
Generally, something called House Bill 920 protects taxpayers from property tax increases based solely on
valuation increases. However, there are two important exceptions to the protections provided by House
Bill 920. The first exception is inside millage. The Ohio Constitution provides 10 inside mills that
do see growth as property values increase. These 10 inside mills are shared by counties, school districts,
townships and municipalities. The exact breakdown of 10 inside mills among these entities varies from
taxing district to taxing district. The second exception is something called the 20 Mill Floor for
school districts. The 20 Mill Floor was enacted by the Ohio Legislature shortly after House Bill 920 was
adopted and was meant to ensure a minimum local participation in funding the school district. All school
districts in Ottawa County are at the 20 Mill Floor.
To learn more about the background of House Bill 920, the 20 Mill Floor and the mechanics of how both
work please review the following information:
Per current law, due to the valuation increase, property taxes will increase on the ten inside mills
and the effective rates on school district operating levies will be adjusted so that those levies
(along with the districts inside operating millage) will produce 20 effective operating mills for
the school district. This happens without a vote by local taxpayers and these increases are therefore
typically referred to as unvoted property tax increases. In most cases throughout the county the
largest part of any tax increase seen by taxpayers will be due to the 20 Mill Floor adjustment for
your school district.
To see how your tax bill has changed from 2024 (for Tax Year 2023) to 2025 (for Tax Year 2024), please follow these steps:
- Go to the County Auditor’s website: https://www.ottawacountyauditor.org
- Click on the “Property” tab at the top of the page and select “Property Search”.
- On the Property Search page there are a number of search options to find your specific parcel.
- Once you have located your parcel via one of the search options, scroll down that page to the “Tax Bill” button and click it.
- You will be taken to a new page where there will be a number of options on the left side of the page. Scroll down to “Levy Distribution” and click on it.
- A new page will come up showing a bar chart. This bar graph compares your tax bill for Tax Year 2024 (paid in 2025) to your tax bill for Tax Year 2023 (paid in 2024) and shows the dollar changes in your tax bill from year to year by taxing entity (County, School District, Park District, etc.).
- Below the bar graph is detail about how your tax bill changed by specific levy from the previous year. The 20 Mill Floor adjustment for school districts will be shown as increases to the “Current Expense” levies the district has in place.
Even though the valuation driven tax increases on the inside millage and due to the 20 Mill Floor adjustment must be
calculated, the entities receiving those tax increases have the option to forgo at least some if not most of the
collection of those additional amounts on a year-by-year basis (which would lessen the impact on taxpayers).
Due to the anticipated impact these tax increases would have on taxpayers, the Ottawa County Budget Commission
(comprised of County Auditor, Jennifer Widmer, County Prosecutor, James VanEerten, and County Treasurer, Tony
Hatmaker) reached out to the Ottawa County Commissioners and the county school districts under its jurisdiction
to engage in a discussion about how these increases might be mitigated.
Ottawa County is allocated 2.0 mills of the 10.0 inside mills to help fund the operation of County government.
The Ottawa County Commissioners (Mark Coppeler, Don Douglas and Mark Stahl) took action to reduce those 2.0 mills
to 1.5 mills for Tax Year 2024 (collected in 2025) which will hold the dollars collected from the County’s inside
millage at approximately the same amount for Tax Year 2023 (collected in 2024). With this action, the County
Commissioners chose to forgo approximately $1,500,000 which otherwise would have been charged to taxpayers as
part of their 2025 property tax bills.
To learn more about this action, please see the press release detailing this action:
None of the five county school districts (Benton-Carroll-Salem, Danbury, Genoa, Port Clinton and Put-In-Bay)
chose to do anything to mitigate the unvoted property tax increases they will be receiving due to this
situation. Each district had options they could have chosen that would have mitigated, at least to some
degree, the impact these unvoted tax increases are going to have upon taxpayers. Unfortunately, all of
them decided they wanted to get as much unvoted taxpayer money as possible out of this situation.
More detail is available concerning specifics and interactions with each school district below
If you are unhappy with the position taken by your school district, I urge you to contact your elected
Board of Education members and express your opinion.
Ultimately, to prevent this situation from occurring again in the future the State Legislature must act.
In my opinion, the quickest, cleanest action that would have a significant immediate impact would
be for the legislature to repeal the 20 Mill Floor for school districts. I urge you to contact
Representatives DJ Swearingen, Josh Williams and Senator Theresa Gavarone and request that they work
toward mitigating or eliminating these types of unvoted property tax increases in the future.
I would be happy to discuss this situation in more detail with anyone interested.
Sincerely,
Tony Hatamker
Ottawa County Treasurer
P.S. An attempt was made to get this situation before the public via the Sandusky Register. Please see
the article that was published on November 25, 2024, below: