Position Papers
No Strings. No Secrets. No Standing By.
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NO STRINGS. NO SECRETS. NO STANDING BY.
Where I Stand on Abolishing Ohio's Property Tax
A Fact-Checked Position on the AxOHTax Constitutional Amendment
The Bottom Line
No family should ever lose the roof over their head because they fell behind on a tax bill. That's not liberty — that's serfdom with a mailbox. I share the anger driving the AxOHTax petition, and I've checked their case against the actual numbers coming out of Columbus. Some of it holds up. Some of it doesn't. And the part everybody skips past is the one that matters most: full abolition wipes out roughly $20 billion a year that funds our schools, our EMS, our fire departments, and our sheriff's offices — and nobody backing the amendment has said how that money gets replaced. Even Ohio Senate Republican leadership has put a number on it: an 18 percent sales tax and a income tax rate over 10 percent just to break even. I won't ask you to trade a tax you hate for one you can't afford.
Sam Adams didn't organize the Sons of Liberty to trade one unaccountable authority for another — he organized them to make government answer to the people. That's the standard I hold both sides to here.
What AxOHTax Is Asking For
A constitutional amendment, not a bill — full, permanent abolition of property tax on homes, farms, and businesses statewide.
Currently collecting signatures toward a ballot vote; their own site now targets November 2027, after earlier organizing efforts had aimed for 2026 — the timeline has already slipped once.
Their case: property tax is the only tax that can cost you your home if you fall behind, and they call any tax that can do that immoral.
What Checks Out
The 2011 Local Government Fund cuts were real and severe. Governor Kasich's budget cut the Fund 25 percent in FY2012 and another 50 percent the year after; its share of the state budget fell from 3.68 percent to 1.66 percent, leaving local governments roughly $1 billion short. That pushed more of the burden onto local property tax — a legislature problem, not a taxpayer problem.
Ohio really does lead the nation in state per-capita library funding — $43.07 versus a $3.44 national average, about 12 times over, per FY2022 data. Fair caveat: that money comes from the state's own general revenue, not your property tax bill, and Ohio's local library funding is actually slightly below the national average. It's a legitimate gripe about state budget priorities, just not a direct property-tax fix.
DeRolph v. State (1997) really did rule Ohio's school funding system unconstitutional for over-relying on local property wealth, and the state's compliance with that ruling has never been fully resolved.
Roughly two-thirds of property tax revenue does fund schools — the Legislative Service Commission's own estimate for FY2027 is about $15 billion of $21 billion collected. AxOHTax cites 70 percent, which is close enough to call accurate.
There is no replacement revenue plan in the amendment, and it's a bigger problem than a gap. Full repeal removes an estimated $20 to $21 billion a year. Ohio Senate GOP leadership itself has said replacing it would take a sales tax near 18 percent and an income tax rate above 10 percent — that's not a partisan attack line, that's coming from Republicans in the Statehouse.
What Doesn't Check Out
“Elderly Ohioans and disabled veterans are losing their homes right now” — no data backs this as an ongoing pattern. The sponsors of the state's own senior-foreclosure protection bill say plainly that senior tax foreclosure is “extremely rare.” Real cases exist and one is one too many, but this isn't the epidemic the messaging implies.
Their Homestead Exemption numbers are outdated. The FAQ cites a $40,000 income cap and $25,000 exemption; the actual 2026 figures are a $41,000 income threshold and a $29,000 exemption, adjusted for inflation every year.
The “the legislature won't act unless we force it” framing is out of date. Columbus already acted — see below.
What's Already Changing in Columbus
On December 19, 2025, Governor DeWine signed a five-bill package (HB 124, 129, 186, 309, and 335) — the largest property tax overhaul in decades. It caps automatic tax increases tied to rising valuations, worth an estimated $3 billion in relief over three years, and sets aside $410 million to backstop schools during the transition.
The same package closes loopholes that let taxes spike faster than inflation and gives county budget commissions authority to roll back voter-approved levies.
In October 2025, a veto override banned the “stealth” substitute and replacement levies counties had used to raise taxes without a new public vote.
House Bill 443, the Senior Protection from Foreclosure Act, is pending in the House Ways and Means Committee right now. It bars tax foreclosure on homeowners 65 or older, or a qualifying surviving spouse, on homes valued under $750,000, while still requiring a payment plan.
Worth saying plainly: House Speaker Matt Huffman pointed directly at the AxOHTax signature drive as a reason the legislature moved fast. The petition didn't have to pass to work — the threat of it already forced real reform.
My Position
No Strings. No Secrets. No Standing By. means Columbus doesn't get to duck a $20 billion question, and no bureaucrat ever takes a paid-off home over a missed bill. Here's where I stand:
Support House Bill 443 outright. Nobody 65 or older, or a qualifying surviving spouse, should face foreclosure over property tax — it's real legislation, it's moving, and it deserves a floor vote.
Hold Columbus to the relief it just passed. Track the $3 billion in promised savings county by county, and call it out publicly if valuations spike again despite the new caps.
Go further: restore the Local Government Fund toward its pre-2011 share of the state budget, so counties aren't forced to lean on property tax to cover police, fire, and roads.
Build on the ban on stealth levies with full transparency — every levy dollar published plain-language, county by county, no accounting games.
Before Ohio seriously considers full abolition, it needs a dollar-for-dollar, independently scored replacement plan on the ballot alongside it — not a promise to figure it out later. Until that exists, I can't ask you to sign a $20 billion blank check, and I won't let Columbus write one either.
NO STRINGS. NO SECRETS. NO STANDING BY.
Standing with Lawrence County Board of Developmental Disabilities
Last November, Lawrence County voters said no to the DD levy — 5,829 to 4,928. Close vote, but a no is a no, and now our neighbors are paying for it. LCDD closed out 2025 more than $2.2 million in the hole. Medicaid waiver enrollment is frozen. The family support program — the one that got wheelchairs, medical supplies, and a break for exhausted caregivers to families raising kids and adults with developmental disabilities — is gone. And Open Door School in Coal Grove is set to close unless somebody steps in.
That's not a budget line item. That's a mom who can't get a hospital bed for her son. That's a family that just lost their only respite. That's real.
Now the state's put a regionalization plan on the table — merging Lawrence County DD with nine other counties (Scioto, Jackson, Adams, Pike, Brown, Fayette, Highland, Gallia, and Meigs) into one regional board, with Columbus picking up the Medicaid match instead of us. When Monroe laid out the tradeoff, Commissioner Copley asked the right first question — what could they do to help, maybe "reach out to our state friends?" That's a fair, engaged question, and I'd have asked it too. But once Monroe answered, "We would have to give up the control, but we can't afford the control, quite honestly," the very next thing out of anyone's mouth was Copley's: "So this seems like a no brainer for Lawrence County." And just like that, the commissioners voted to send letters of support to Columbus.
I respect Ms. Monroe's honesty — she's managing a crisis and she told the truth about the tradeoff instead of dressing it up. That takes guts.
This isn't an attack on Commissioner Copley. Every official in that room is a fellow conservative, and I believe they want what's best for this county. What I'm calling out is a mindset, and you already know where that mindset leads — we lived it with Lock 27. The excitement outpaced the questions, and a process failure turned into a fight for answers nobody should've had to have. That's what happens when nobody in the room is willing to be the skeptic who says "this sounds great, now prove it." I'm that guy. Lawrence County families raising kids and loved ones with developmental disabilities deserve that same scrutiny before we hand our DD board's future to a ten-county compact — not questions asked after the vote.
Before Lawrence County signs onto a ten-county board, I want real answers, not assurances:
Who runs it, and does Lawrence County get a real seat at the table — or just a vote that gets outvoted nine times out of ten?
Are the savings from combining resources actually enough to fully serve Lawrence County, or just enough to cover the state's Medicaid match and call it a day?
Are we cutting administrative overhead, or are we cutting the frontline caseworkers and service coordinators who process waivers and sit at kitchen tables with our families?
If the frontline gets thin, how does a regional office headquartered somewhere else keep up with Lawrence County's demand?
And how do we know Lawrence County gets its fair share of resources based on our need — not just an average split across ten counties with ten different situations?
Here's what people forget: county commissioners appoint five of the seven members of our DD board. That's not nothing — that's real, direct control over who's making these calls for our families, right now, today. I will use that appointment power to put people on that board who fight for Lawrence County, and I will not vote to hand away local control to Columbus until somebody answers these questions in plain English, in public, on the record.
Our families raising kids and loved ones with developmental disabilities didn't fail this levy — the system failed them long before that ballot. They deserve leaders who ask hard questions before they sign anything away. No strings. No secrets. No standing by.
NO STRINGS. NO SECRETS. NO STANDING BY.
Resolution 4 Wouldn't Have Cost Lawrence County a Single Deal
A Fact-Checked Defense of the 14-Day Public Notice Period
The Bottom Line
Every time someone tells you Lawrence County can't afford transparency because the “speed of business” demands secrecy, they're either pointing at a deal that never actually moved that fast, or at an approval that happens entirely outside county government to begin with. I built Resolution 4 to survive that argument, not dodge it. Fourteen days of public notice before commissioners vote away public land or public tax dollars — with a 24-hour emergency floor that matches what state law already requires for a special meeting — isn't slow government. It's the access the public is already owed, with the lights turned on. Run it against the three biggest economic development wins Lawrence County has landed in recent years — Vertiv, Azure Standard, and PureCycle — and every one of them still closes.
What Resolution 4 Actually Does
Requires 14 days of public notice, from the point an economic development incentive package is in substantially final form, before the Board of County Commissioners takes a final vote — covering tax abatements, land transfers, infrastructure commitments, and direct financial incentives.
Includes a 24-hour emergency floor for genuine emergencies, matching the special-meeting notice Ohio law already requires under ORC 121.22(F). The public is never asked to accept less notice than state law already guarantees for the meeting itself.
Bars use of the emergency floor merely because a business has imposed a deadline — invoking it requires a written justification entered into the public record.
Is grounded in existing statutory authority, not invented power: ORC 5709.63 (enterprise zone and tax abatement agreements), ORC 5709.77-81 (tax increment financing), and ORC 121.22 (Ohio's Sunshine Law).
Cannot be quietly repealed. Any future repeal or amendment must be its own individually noticed agenda item, decided by roll-call vote, with every commissioner's name recorded in the minutes.
The Three Deals Critics Will Bring Up
Vertiv — $49 million combined investment in Ironton and Westerville, up to roughly 520 new jobs, targeting mid-2027 operational status.
Azure Standard — $9.3 million investment, 150 new jobs, moving into the pre-built Spec 13 building at The Point Industrial Park in South Point.
PureCycle — $363 million total project, backed by a $750,000 JobsOhio revitalization grant, roughly 51 high-wage jobs, in Ironton.
Why None of Them Would Have Been Lost
Vertiv
The county's role in this deal was approving the Engineer's garage property swap and a revenue-sharing arrangement with the City of Ironton — which required a formal Ohio Attorney General opinion before commissioners could even act. AG opinions routinely take weeks on their own. Fourteen days of public notice running alongside a process that already took longer than that isn't the variable that decides whether this deal closes.
Azure Standard
Speed here came from Spec 13 already sitting built and vacant — a building JobsOhio funded back in 2021, years before Azure ever appeared. Azure never needed commissioners to skip a public step, because the infrastructure decision was already made, public, and finished long before this company showed up. If anything, this deal proves the case for building ahead of demand, not for skipping review at the finish line.
PureCycle
A $363 million buildout with environmental clearance requirements runs on a timeline of years, not weeks. A 14-day public comment window on the incentive terms is a rounding error against that clock.
The Structural Point Critics Miss
JobsOhio — the entity that actually approved the $1 million, $3 million, $880,000, and $750,000 grants across these three deals — is a private nonprofit, exempt from Ohio's own Sunshine Law. A county resolution has no reach into JobsOhio's internal board process, and Resolution 4 doesn't try. It only applies to what Lawrence County commissioners themselves vote on. So when someone argues “JobsOhio has to move at the speed of business,” they're describing a process my resolution was never inside of. The only thing Resolution 4 touches is what was always the public's business to begin with — commissioners giving away public land and committing public tax dollars - your dollars.