In the Nordonia Hills communities there are multiple property tax levies and another income tax increase on the ballot for Macedonia residents. For most of my adult life I never understood how to convert mills into the dollars a levy would cost me. To simplify their message to voters the proponents of levies always speak in estimated home values, not a far closer approximation of what their levy will cost you based on your home’s actual values.
In Macedonia there is the Issue 20 income tax increase, but a citywide property tax levy that will expire no matter how people vote Tuesday. This raises the question is the difference between the expiring property tax and the tax increases on the ballot going to make voting for them more financially palatable? That’s a question for each voter’s unique circumstances that needs to be weighed against all of the other reasons Issue 20 proponents say the increased revenue is needed.
Last spring I made a simple calculator in an attempt to explain Issue 3’s income tax and refund mechanism based on the voter’s income and the city in which they work. This year I’ve expanded upon that calculator to look up your property values and do all of the property tax math in all of the Nordonia Hills Schools communities. Issues 2, 8, 20, 43, 45 and the value being “saved” by the expiration of Macedonia’s Fire Protection levy are all calculated in just a few clicks of the mouse.
Proponents of Issue 20 have often said that only a small portion of your property tax goes towards city services. In an effort to illustrate those numbers the calculator will first show you both the high level distribution of your current property taxes (when being used from a computer you can hover over the pie slices to see actual dollar amounts):
…and an idea of how those local funds are distributed within your local community:
Then, for each income or property tax Issue that is relevant to your residential address, the calculator will show you how much each would increase or decrease your taxes on an annual or monthly basis. My intent is not to influence anyone for or against any of these issues, but I hope that this type of information helps voters make a more informed choice on the issues Tuesday.
It takes less than a minute or two to fill out and can be found online here: https://garvas.org/taxes
Jeff Garvas
Macedonia
