Some Ohio schools could eliminate property tax levies if the voters approve an income tax

Parma City School District’s school board offered to eliminate three property tax levies for the first time in history if voters would support a 1.75% earned-income tax.

Property taxes have been a bane for Ohioans, prompting lawmakers to introduce measures to provide taxpayers with financial relief.

If voters approve the income tax, the Parma district school board would stop collecting property tax levies set to expire in 2030, 2031, and 2034, according to News 5 Cleveland.

The news source reported that the collection of those property tax levies would end in January 2028, and that the income tax, which would allegedly apply only to wages, salaries, and self-employment income, would be collected in January 2027.

“What we’re attempting to do is shift our reliance on property tax to generate revenue for us and pivot to this earned income tax. This is a different request,” Parma City Schools Superintendent Scott Hunt told News 5 Cleveland.

According to the news source, the average $100,000 district homeowner in Parma, Parma Heights, and Seven Hills would save $500 in property taxes each year if these levies were eliminated.

“We’re also looking at making reductions district-wide over the next three years. It was part of that resolution. $9 million over three years. Our commitment is to remain, you know, financially transparent, to do the things that we need to do to be fiscally responsible,” Hunt said.

The last time Parma City Schools passed a new-money operating levy was in 2011, and the most recent attempt failed in November 2025.

Hunt said that, to avoid failing again, the board decided not to propose an earnings-income levy higher than 1.75%, adding that, with the 1.75%, the district would collect $50.3 million in exchange for the $40.5 million that the three property levies do.

“That net increase doesn’t sound like a lot, but because it’s an earned income tax, our hope is that people’s income grows each year, and this helps sustain what we would collect in the future, and it would be more than just that flat property tax collection that we get,” he said.

Hunt added that since the board doesn’t “get help from the state in terms of the budgeting process or fair school funding,” it is forced to “find a way to generate revenue” in another way.

“We know we can’t invest in Bitcoin, and we know we’re not winning the lottery, and so, this is how we have to attempt to do this,” he said.

However, it appears the resolution will fail because some voters interviewed by News 5 Cleveland opposed it. According to them, they are already paying a lot of income taxes, so the increase would be too much to ask.

When it came to eliminating property tax levies, voters also opposed it, questioning the school board’s financial transparency and saying that eliminating the levies would result in government workers being fired.
Hunt told News 5 Cleveland that if this levy doesn’t pass in May, the district will try again in November.

“After that, we will be in dire straits. The reductions we’re talking about right now will likely increase more significantly, and Parma City schools will look vastly different,” he said. “We are a people business, and we have to have teachers in front of kids to deliver high-quality programming. Ultimately, it does boil down to people and programs that we have to eliminate to make sure that we can keep a budget in the black.”