04/01/2026
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🏠 A grassroots movement in Ohio is pushing for something no state in America has ever done: abolishing property taxes entirely, and they want voters to decide this November. Brian Massie and Leonard Gilbert, co-chairs of the Committee to Abolish Property Taxes, say what started as a mission to protect senior citizens from being taxed out of homes they spent their lives building has grown into a full-scale statewide campaign after state lawmakers repeatedly refused to even meet with them. Massie says his own property taxes jumped 40% in just 10 years, while Gilbert describes gut-wrenching phone calls from seniors watching fixed incomes get swallowed by ever-rising tax bills. After getting stonewalled by legislators, the pair decided the only way to get attention was to go directly to Ohio voters with a ballot measure that would eliminate all property taxes, residential and commercial, across the entire state. Massie is keeping his signature count a secret, but needs more than 400,000 to get the measure on the November ballot.
The stakes could not be higher, and both sides are drawing sharp battle lines. The Ohio Office of Budget and Management estimates eliminating property taxes would create a $24 billion hole in the state's finances, warning of catastrophic cuts to schools, police, fire, EMS, libraries, and parks, particularly in rural communities that depend almost entirely on property tax revenue. Governor Mike DeWine has suggested the shortfall would require raising the state sales tax to as high as 18 to 20 percent, though a tax law professor at Cleveland State says that scenario would simply drive Ohioans to shop and live in neighboring states, making the problem worse. Proponents counter that government spending needs to be cut, not replaced with new taxes, and that voters would have a full year after passage before property tax collection stopped, giving lawmakers time to find solutions. With struggling school districts, constitutional questions about school funding already unresolved, and hundreds of thousands of Ohioans feeling priced out of their own homes, this debate is shaping up to be one of the most consequential ballot fights Ohio has seen in decades.
