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More at OHEA.org The backers of an amendment to abolish property taxes in Ohio share a signature update and a spirited discussion about data centers.

That's this weekend.

The state of Ohio.

Just.

Welcome to the state of Ohio.

I'm Karen Kasler.

The group that wants Ohio voters to abolish property taxes almost certainly won't make this fall's ballot, even though the deadline to submit signatures is more than two months away.

Members of the Committee to Abolish Property Taxes release their signature total in a live streamed event, after months of refusing requests to do so from journalists and volunteers.

The group, also called axle tax, needs a minimum of 413,487 valid signatures from 44 of Ohio's 88 counties by July 1st to make the November ballot.

The group's leader, Brian Massie, made the announcement in a Lake County home in a replica of the white House Oval Office.

After reading what he called a declaration of independence for all Ohioans.

We need 413,488 88 valid signatures by July 1st to secure a place on the November 2026 ballot.

We have currently 305,000 signatures.

Our minimum goal is 620,000.

We are on a pace to reach the 413,000, but not our minimum goal of 620,000.

We have surpassed the needed collection of signatures from the required 44 counties, so that we can collect signatures now from any county in the state.

We don't have to worry about reaching that 44 goal.

Therefore, we're calling on all Ohioans to help us reach or surpass our goal of 620,000.

Group members have said a way to restore the billions of dollars voter approved property taxes raised for schools, first responders and other local services is not included in this amendment.

They have said lawmakers who have ignored their concerns for years will have to decide that.

It's interesting.

People always say, well, Brian, how are you going to replace the the property tax dollars?

Our response to that is we're not going to as Commissioner Plecnik says, the first thing that they must do is cut spending.

But I asked this question.

In fact, I even asked governor candidate Vivek Ramaswami, who has been touting that he is going to eliminate the income tax.

And I said, very interesting that you're going to that accounts for now, about $10.9 billion in Ohio.

And I asked, well, how are you going to replace that $10.9 billion?

And the response was, well, basically the same way you're going to replace the the property tax money, there isn't there is no answer for them to say that it is.

In fact, I've even had Senator Jerry Serino say to me, Brian, it's irresponsible of you to abolish property taxes without you.

Brian Massie, coming up with a solution of how we're going to replace the taxes.

It's not the role of a citizen if our legislators do not feel that they're capable of coming up with other reforms, then maybe they need to move on.

And we need to get some new leaders in the state.

After the announcement, I talked with Republican Senator Jerry Serino about the Shout-Out he got from Massie.

than done.

And, you know, that's been my criticism all along here is that, you know, we have close to $24 billion a year that our communities collect in property taxes, not just for schools, but for every other levy that the voters vote for.

Right.

And these are for services that that they that are there, they're asking for.

And so with these guys want to do is, you know, basically cancel out with the voters have asked for in approving these various levies.

They claim that this is a tax, that property taxes are a tax on unrealized gains.

I look at it differently than that.

I look at it as this is a basically a fee for services that are given to the community by the various organizations that have levies.

Right.

Again, that the that the taxpayers, the voters have voted for.

And so, you know, I think their whole premise that we should just figure this out in Columbus, you know, we have to figure out how to make up for 24 billion and that they also want us to pay for schools, obviously, to make up the difference.

They obviously do not understand state budgeting, the budgeting process or really understand our numbers.

And again, I think, you know, in many cases their hearts are in the right place.

Inflation has ravaged taxpayers in many respects, not just profit.

Property taxes.

And we I think we took some great steps last year with the five bills that we passed on property taxes that are still waiting to kick in because property taxes are are paid for in arrears.

And so this coming July will start to see some taxpayers getting relief.

And we think that over the next three years we're going to see about 3 billion of property taxes, tech property tax relief out there around the around the state of Ohio.

And we're still probably have another dozen bills floating around the Senate in the House on other things that we will do.

And so it's going to be a continuing process for us to make sure we get it right.

I've been monitoring their Facebook group, this Committee to Abolish Property Taxes.

And some of the things that keep coming up are that the state spends too much money, that there need to be audits of things like marijuana revenue and lottery money, and that the state needs to doge Ohio.

Like what happened at the federal level.

Do you think people have a good understanding of what state government is and what it pays for?

No, I don't think this group does.

Certainly, I wouldn't generalize to the population in general, but this group certainly does not.

I mean, if they're asking for audits, do they not know what the what the state auditor's responsibilities are?

We have plenty of audits being done across the board in every aspect of state government.

We don't need to we don't need to start doing something that we're already doing.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

They just don't understand how the state process works.

And sure, we have reduced spending in a number of areas.

We generally don't get much credit for it.

We've reduced income taxes to the flat tax of 2.75% with one bracket.

And as you know, back not too long ago, we had eight brackets and the the rate was close to 7%.

Okay.

Or maybe even a little bit higher in the beginning.

And so we've, we've put more money in the pockets of, of our citizens.

And you know, we can't control inflation unfortunately.

And one of the claims that they make is that they'd like to see seniors be eliminated from being charged any property taxes.

Well, yeah, that's a nice concept.

It has a cost.

Right.

And we have to decide how we balance making changes in eliminating taxes for some people.

But we have to understand that in school systems, for example, when there are fixed levies out there, fixed amount levies that the school system is going to collect every year, let's say $1 million a year automatically, if we exempt seniors from paying that property tax, that's going to mean an increase in property taxes for families who are not qualified as seniors.

Okay.

Because it's a fixed some levy.

And we have many of those out there today.

And so we have to be cognizant of that because we do one thing.

There's a consequence to other people that we have to take into consideration.

note, the group says it will decide in mid-June whether it will go forward and submit the signatures they have, or whether they'll hold on to these and continue gathering signatures for next year.

But there's a lot of frustration that they've tapped into.

People who've signed this petition or joined this Facebook group have said they're very frustrated and that they feel like lawmakers aren't listening to them.

So what what do you what do you want to tell them?

I mean, Brian, Nancy, I believe is your constituent.

What do you want to tell these folks about state lawmakers listening and being concerned about their concerns?

Well, this is a basically a single issue group, okay?

And they don't want to hear the facts.

They don't want to hear counterarguments to theirs.

I think this whole press conference and this declaration that he signed, which gave the appearances of a Saturday Night Live skit to me, I think this declaration was a stunt to try to breathe new life into a failing effort, because I think they're going to have great difficulty getting this next tranche of signatures that are, by the way, you know, in these as these things go, there is very often a 30 to 50% failure rate on signatures actually qualifying.

So even the 620,000 signatures that they've targeted there, they're definitely not going to get that certainly by July 1st.

And I think is more time goes on as we educate the public on what this really means and what the consequences could be.

I think the longer they take to get this done the ballot, the better it is for us, because we're going to make sure that we communicate with the public on how bad an idea this is.

This was a bad idea last year when they introduced it, and it's a bad idea today.

And indeed, the longer signatures are held, the more likely it is that a large number of them are going to be thrown out because people move, people die.

All that.

Correct?

Correct.

Yeah.

It's going to be a moving target and more work for the Secretary of State's office to require people.

But I think, again, I empathize.

I'm a taxpayer, property tax payer, as I'm sure you are.

And and look, inflation was the culprit here, not property taxes themselves.

And that was the fault of the Biden administration.

By printing so much money post Covid and spending so much money, you know, and printing it.

And so that that is reared its ugly head in property valuations and scarcity of properties, which also raises prices as well.

I think the inflation thing has already started to work its way out.

A borrowing rates and inventory for real estate transactions is getting better.

I think if we do some more things that will tweak property taxes and how they're collected in the next year or two, I think we can help that.

And we don't need to go extreme here with this kind of movement that is going to end up being worse.

We think, for the taxpayers of Ohio, unrelated to property taxes, but related to the constitutional amendment process.

And the idea of it takes right now a simple majority of voters to approve a constitutional amendment.

You and other Republican lawmakers who wanted to raise that to 60%.

Does this give you an idea of how difficult it is to get on the ballot, or do you think that there needs to be changes to getting onto the ballot?

I don't think in this case it's not the percentage.

I think it's the issue.

And in, in, in it, you know, getting on the ballot, if you have a good idea in a, in a responsible policy initiative, then yeah, you still have to do a lot of work and spend a lot of money to get on the ballot.

But, you know, they started out with a bad idea in the first place, and that's been like an anchor on them.

And it would be an anchor, whether it's 50 plus, 1 or 60%, that if you don't have a good policy that is the subject of your of your ballot initiative, you're going to have a difficult time.

I think it is way too easy to change the Constitution in this state.

We are among the worst and the easiest.

I should say.

I think 60% threshold is the right number.

Let's make it difficult, just like we do at the federal level.

You know, Congress alone cannot change the Constitution, right?

The Supreme Court can interpret it, but they can't.

They can't add something or take something away.

I think we should make it more difficult.

And I suspect that I hope before my time is up in the Senate in two and a half years, that we will once again be able to take this out to the public and do it a little differently.

I think we made some mistakes last time.

We made it a little more complicated than we needed to.

I think if we simplify it and make a stronger case for it, that I think the voting public will agree with us that the Ohio Constitution is a sacred document, and it should be very difficult in challenging to change it.

Let me just make sure I understand here.

Do you think that if a ballot question were asked, do you want to abolish property taxes, you don't think that would pass?

I don't think so.

I think whether it's this November or next November, I think, you know, and it's our task is we've been out doing for the last almost year explaining to people what this really means.

Okay.

I mean, who wouldn't want to abolish a tax, right.

But when you if that's the only question you're asked and you sign a petition, then you haven't done your duty of knowing what you're signing, right?

Because what what what they don't explain to them when they're when they're getting signatures is, you know, what will go away if this happens.

And Massie has admitted he doesn't have a plan, he thinks that's our job to figure it out.

It's a multi-billion dollar problem that he would create that we would have to figure out.

And believe me, it would involve raising taxes in other areas.

Big A coalition of over 65 organizations of local elected officials, businesses and trade groups and unions representing first responders and teachers to fight.

The amendment was announced on April 16th.

Ohioans to Protect Public Services was expected to put up an aggressive and well-funded effort against the abolishment proposal.

It said in a statement that while its members recognize the need for property tax reform, doing so without a plan to replace that revenue would only create chaos and trigger bigger increases in other taxes.

there's also a group that's gathering signatures for an amendment this fall to ban large data centers that use more than 25MW monthly.

That was the topic of this week's Columbus Metropolitan Club Forum, which I was privileged to moderate.

Joining me on the stage where Ohio Manufacturers Association President Ryan Augsburger, associate faculty director of research at Ohio State's Sustainability Institute, doctor Jeff Belichick, Google operations manager for Ohio Timothy Chadwick and Columbus City Council member Christopher Wyche.

The CMC audience and I asked the panel about the threat of that possible constitutional amendment, concerns about water usage of data centers, and the lack of transparency around agreements to build them.

Also, high energy prices that many are blaming on data centers and data centers, providing their own on site energy generation, and many cases through behind the meter natural gas power plants.

Here's part of that conversation.

the concerns about environmental impact on air, for instance, and that a lot of things we're talking about here are fossil fuel generators and where's the room for renewables?

Where's that part of the discussion?

So I would say that there is a lot of room for renewables.

It's just hard here in Ohio, as was mentioned before, you know, nationally, about 65% of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels.

Here in Ohio, it's about 80%.

And when when you have electricity generation from fossil fuels, you have things like particulates that are emitted.

You have nitrogen dioxide, you have sulfur dioxide that's created.

We have carbon dioxide, which is the principal greenhouse gas altering our climate.

And when we're relying increasingly on natural gas, and we have a natural gas distribution and transmission system that is leaky, the primary component of natural gas is methane.

And methane is about 20 times more potent a greenhouse gas than than carbon dioxide.

And so, as we have in essence taken a strategy as build a natural gas now because it's quicker and easier and nuclear later, we're creating the emissions that are just contributing, continuing to contribute to climate change.

Now, the nitrogen dioxide that is produced when you combust natural gas is is well-established to be.

Implicated in respiratory disease, higher cases, higher rates of asthma, cardiovascular disease and so on.

So when we when we talk about environment, it's not just like a green tree out there, it's actually us.

Right?

We need to slow, stop and reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere full stop.

But we also have to do so in a way that when we understand for our economic development, we human well-being.

And 80% of the way we do that in Ohio is undermining the environment upon which our well-being depends.

Ryan, did you want to jump in a lot a lot of elements to address in that.

And I really want to come in and Google for being here so we can all hear direct from them.

And as you heard from from Tim, that company is investing in all the above forms of energy generation.

And that's the beautiful thing about the power of markets, right?

Customer wants this or that form of generation.

They can procure it.

So again it comes back I'm sorry, I'm a broken record.

The forecasts do not stand up.

They are overestimated.

They are driving up your generation price.

They are driving up your transmission price.

Your transmission price is 300% more than it used to be.

And that's been going on for ten years before the data centers.

Who's winning?

Who's winning, who's winning in this paradigm, the people that own the wires, right.

They're winning this very profitable.

They brag about it to their investors whether or not they're serving the load, whether the data center comes online or not, they're winning generators.

They're also the price of power set by the competitive market right now, sky high.

They're winning.

Who's losing?

Customers are losing.

Who else?

Data centers.

Because not only are they being blamed, I think unfairly for these forecasts, I think the used as a scapegoat by the utilities to explain why your power bills high right now and it is very high.

They're also being discriminated against through the rate structure that's been put in place in Ohio on them.

And and that's a subject of litigation.

So a lot going on here.

Right, right.

I want to jump in because yes, they are now starting to do that.

But that is mainly because public opinion on data centers has really turned.

And a lot of companies are realizing if we do not do something to kind of show that we either care about the environment or care about the people who live in around these data centers, they're going to come at us with pitchforks.

So it is nice that they have now decided that bringing renewable energy to their sites is something that they want to do.

I would ask, throughout the entire span of Google's data center building capital investment, has that always been the case?

Right.

Has every data center that has behind the meter generation, is it clean?

I would bet the answer is no.

So again, I can't speak to the industry at Google and Ohio.

We do not have behind the meter generation at this time.

I would like to highlight one thing that Ryan said about transmission costs.

One of the efforts that we've taken at Google is that we've partnered with a company called CTC global.

They manufacture the transmission lines of today.

Right.

So the transmission lines that you see around Ohio are probably the ones that were invented in 1908.

Okay.

CTC global goes from a steel cord transmission line to a composite cord transmission line.

And that same size line can double the capacity.

And what we've done at Google, as we've said, we've gone to the utility companies and we've said if you upgrade your lines, we will cover the cost difference between the two materials.

If your linemen need the training, we'll cover the cost for the training.

And if you need the studies done for the integration into the system, we will also cover the cost for that.

And that's what Google has done real quick.

Oh well I want to move on to something else.

Yeah.

Well quickly three numbers and then some context.

So three numbers.

A typical modern data center requires about the same amount of electricity as 100,000 households.

That's a heck of a lot of energy efficiency.

To compensate for one data center, the newer hyperscale data centers are projected to require about 20 times that in electricity.

And then and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, a US Department of Energy national lab, projects that by 2030 2028, the data centers are consuming about 12% of our electricity generation.

And yes, the projections are off.

And they are sort of by definition, projections will be wrong.

But we have to understand and unravel why.

And part of the reason why are the timelines I mentioned before, right.

It takes upwards of two years to get a data center up and going.

It takes 7 to 10 years to get the transmission, 5 to 7 to get the generation.

It is a slow process to get that generation online, which means that the data centers, because they're scouting for different locations, are putting in multiple bids for interconnection requests.

And there's a requirement that we'd be able to provide that electricity.

So that's what I was referring to before by phantom loads is the putting in multiple bids.

Right.

So if we unpack that and address why and seek to address that, rather than just placing blame on a particular entity or sector, then I think we can make some progress.

You can watch the whole discussion on the Columbus Metropolitan Club's YouTube channel.

Ohio Residents for Responsible Development, the group behind the large data center ban, must also gather at least 413,487 valid signatures from half of Ohio's counties by July 1st to make this fall's ballot.

That group got the go ahead to circulate petitions on April 3rd.

The group that wants to abolish property taxes started their signature gathering last May.

There have been three citizen initiated constitutional amendments put on to the general election ballot since 2018, redistricting in 2024, reproductive rights and abortion access in 2023, and criminal justice reform in 2018.

Backers of each of them turned in more than 700,000 signatures to get them before voters, and all three of those efforts used paid signature gatherers.

And that is it for this week for my colleagues at the state House News Bureau of Ohio Public Media.

Thanks for watching.

Please check out our website at State News or find us online by searching State of Ohio Show.

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You.

Support for the Statehouse News Bureau comes from the law offices of Porter, Wright, Morris and Arthur LLP.

Porter Wright is dedicated to bringing inspired legal outcomes to the Ohio business community.

More at Porter Wright.com.

Porter Wright.

inspired every day.

And from the Ohio education Association, representing 120,000 educators who are united in their mission to create the excellent public schools every child deserves.

More at OHEA.org