(7-1-25) Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine issued 67 line-item vetoes, including the removal of proposed property tax changes that lawmakers had included.

“We have to find solutions to our property tax problem. But look, I’m an optimist, but as I looked at those and imposing those right away in this budget, all of them, I felt that this was not going to be good for our students ultimately. You know, the only thing that matters is our students.

I will be convening a working group to be formalized and announced in the coming weeks, which will make recommendations to the General Assembly and to me on how we can provide meaningful property tax relief to Ohioans and still fund our schools, still fund our schools and fund our critical services.”

Good news for Grand Lake in one of the vetoes of a plan to cut dredging plans-

DeWine said-

“I am announcing today that our administration to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is committed to undertaking these three dredging projects, and we will do them, and we will do them within this biennium as prescribed in the original language in the budget that’s at Grand Lake St Mary’s, Indian Lake, and Lake Loramie.”

DeWine did not veto the legislature’s plan to use $1.7 billion from the Ohio unclaimed fund account to help finance stadium projects, including one for the Cleveland Browns-

“And to me, the biggest objectives were no taxpayers dollars used for this in the sense of nothing coming out of general fund, nothing competing against education. And it couldn’t just be about the Browns, it had to be universal. This proposal, which the legislature wanted to do, satisfied those two things. And when you get the two prime objectives, it seems to me, it’s time to say, yeah,” 

Statement from Senate President Rob McColley and Finance Chairman Jerry Cirino:

“We appreciate the governor’s support of our significant income tax reform that reduces the tax burden on Ohioans by moving to a single flat income tax bracket.

Yet it is puzzling that at a time when Ohioans are demanding a reduction in their property tax burden, the governor vetoed all of the General Assembly’s reforms, which would have contained the rate of growth of property tax across the state, added more accountability to local taxing subdivisions, and would have created more ballot transparency to levies.

These are kitchen table issues that hard working families understand, and the General Assembly needs to strongly consider acting on their behalf to implement these vital changes that would return the property tax system to its cost controlled guardrails as originally intended.”