Lawmakers plan to return to the Ohio Statehouse on July 21 to override three of Gov. Mike DeWine’s 67 vetoes in the budget bill.
When signing the two-year budget, DeWine rejected lawmakers’ plans on several property tax provisions.
The Ohio House will consider overriding three vetoes: eliminating school districts’ and local government’s power to levy replacement property taxes, requiring that certain tax levies be included in the 20-mill floor calculation for school funding, and giving county commissions unilateral authority to reduce certain voter-approved school district levies.
Not on the list: A restriction on how much school districts could carry over from year to year.
There’s no date set for the Ohio Senate to return yet, but Senate Finance Chairman Jerry Cirino said “it’s a safe bet that we won’t be far behind.”
Cirino, R-Kirtland, said he was surprised and “very disappointed” by DeWine’s vetoes on lawmakers’ property tax relief.
In his June 30 vetoes, DeWine rejected several of Republican lawmakers’ plans to offer property tax relief to Ohioans frustrated with high bills.
“We have to find solutions to our property tax problem,” DeWine said during a July 1 news conference. “But as I looked at those and imposing those right away in this budget, all of them, I felt this was not going to be good for our students.”
The vetoes came as Ohioans push for a constitutional amendment to eliminate property taxes, which skyrocketed with home values in recent years.
Cirino called the ballot effort a “ridiculous proposal” and “quite irresponsible.” The measure doesn’t offer a substitute source of money for school districts, libraries and local emergency services, he said.
Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, hopes lawmakers don’t override DeWine’s vetoes. “At some point, you just have to move on and be done.”
“I think the governor was very judicious with his vetoes,” Antonio said. “There was a lot of them because there was more policy in this budget than I’ve ever seen before.”
How can lawmakers override a veto?
The governor gets the power to strike out parts of the spending bills without vetoing the entire bill.
A veto override vote must start in the chamber where the bill originated. In the case of the state budget bill, that’s the Ohio House.
Each override vote must have at least a three-fifths majority vote in the House and Senate. That means 60 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate.
Legislators can take an override vote on any veto at any time during the current two-year legislative session, which ends Dec. 31, 2026.
Jessie Balmert contributed to this report.
State government reporter Laura Bischoff can be reached at lbischoff@gannett.com and @lbischoff on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Will Ohio lawmakers override Gov. Mike DeWine’s property tax vetoes?
Reporting by Laura A. Bischoff, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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