by Nicole Piscitani • Sept. 7, 2025
The summer recess is almost over, with the Ohio legislature returning for committees the week of Sept. 15. The fall legislative calendar looks similar in both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate, with eight session days scheduled during October and November. Both the House and Senate have also scheduled some if-needed sessions in September and December. While it isn’t clear what the legislative priorities are, there are a few issues to watch.
Property taxes
The Ohio legislature included several property tax items in House Bill (HB) 96, the biennial budget bill. Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed most of those items and created a property tax workgroup to study the issue and develop recommendations. The Ohio House returned on July 21 and voted to override one of DeWine’s veto items. DeWine had vetoed language in HB 96 that would eliminate the ability of local subdivisions to place several types of levies on the ballot, including emergency, substitute, replacement and renewal with an increase levies. The Ohio Senate has indicated that it has the votes for an override and will consider that issue upon its return.
DeWine’s property tax workgroup has been meeting weekly since late July and has studied and reviewed the property tax items that were vetoed. The co-chairs of the group are trying to find issues of consensus and will include those items in the final report due Sept. 30. Additionally, the workgroup has discussed other property tax bills that have already been introduced in the legislature. One bill that has been discussed the most is HB 186, which authorizes a property tax credit for the owners of property that is located in a school district on the 20-mill floor, with the goal of limiting a district’s total property tax revenue growth from the floor to the rate of inflation. Workgroup members have also talked about including inside millage and will continue to discuss this bill as they finalize their work.
The workgroup is focused on both short-term relief and long-term solutions. An area that would provide some relief and has had considerable discussion is deferment programs, expansion of the homestead exemption and circuit breakers. However, all of these would require that the legislature allocate money, and since HB 96 is already signed, it is unlikely that the legislature will allocate these types of funds this fall.
Both the House and Senate will continue to work on property tax bills and may try to override DeWine’s vetoes. This will be an important topic discussed this fall. Also unknown are the property tax workgroup recommendations and legislators’ reaction to the final report. Lastly, it is unclear how involved DeWine will be in the property discussion once the report is released. Any stand-alone bill will need DeWine’s signature, so if the legislature passes any additional property tax bills, it will need DeWine’s support.
Education deregulation
Every year, the legislature introduces an education deregulation bill that includes mostly noncontroversial items and aims to update the Ohio Revised Code. Both the Ohio House and Ohio Senate have started developing bills that should be introduced in the near future. These bills will likely move quickly and see multiple amendments. One thing to note: Other education bills could be amended into the deregulation bill, essentially turning it into an omnibus bill.
Redistricting
The Ohio Congressional map will expire at the end of 2026 because the map has not received bipartisan support. The state legislature is the entity tasked with drawing the new lines, which need to be finalized by Sept. 30. If the legislature doesn’t finalize the map by that date, the Ohio Redistricting Commission will take over as the entity to draw the congressional lines. The maps need to be completed ahead of the 2026 elections. The redistricting discussion will be one of the biggest and most important topics this fall and could impact other bill negotiations at the Statehouse.