A Shift, But Not A Solution

May 5, 2026

Good Tuesday morning,

Primary voters across Ohio will go to the polls today and by tonight we will know who will be our nominees in November for governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, treasurer and two seats on the Ohio Supreme Court.

We will know the matchups for 15 congressional districts, 33 Ohio Senate, 99 Ohio House and a host of local elected offices.

We will also know the outcome of 65 local tax issues for local school districts.

Something funny happened on the way to the primary polls this year: public school boards, superintendents and treasurers, and their local levy committees, have caught wind of the anti-property tax sentiment and they have made strategic adjustments accordingly.

First, according Cleveland.com, there are fewer levies on the ballot today compared to previous primary elections, but the number of districts asking voters to approve income tax increases for schools is the highest since 2020.

The Ohio Education Policy Institute (OEPI) reported 99 tax issues in the 2025 primary and 97 in the 2024 primary.

This year, 32 school districts are seeking an increase in the income tax compared to 22 in 2025 and just 16 in 2024, according to the OEPI.

This is a shift, but not a solution.

Four times during the DeRolph era, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that a state funding formula for public schools that is over-reliant on property taxes is unconstitutional.

Moving from property to income taxes doesn’t change that idea. It’s the overreliance on local taxes that is unconstitutional because this indicates the state is shortchanging local public schools and local public school children.

Policy Matters Ohio estimates that when state lawmakers abandoned the Cupp Patterson Fair School Funding Plan in the current two-year state budget, they underfunded public schools by $3 billion.

This is Count 2 in our lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the EdChoice private school voucher program that will siphon away $1.7 billion in public tax dollars at the same time the state is underfunding public schools.

There’s a reason there is tremendous pressure to raise local taxes and the people crafting the state budget in Columbus are to blame.

When lawmakers take $1.7 billion from the same line item in the state budget that pays for public schools and gives it to private, mostly religious, schools, and at the same time they shortchange public school funding by $3 billion, lawmakers put tremendous pressure on schools to put levies on the ballot.

We’re witnessing this pressure in real time. Local public schools know property taxes are a sore spot for local voters, so they are shifting to income tax increases to make up for lost state revenues.

It’s a shift, it isn’t a solution.

Sincerely,

Vouchers Hurt Ohio