On September 4, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court issued its ruling in Marysville Exempted Village Schools Bd. of Edn. v. Union Cty. Bd. of Revision, Slip Opinion 2024-Ohio-3323. In a 6-1 decision authored by Justice Stewart, the Supreme Court affirmed an appeals court ruling that allowed a school board to appeal from the decision of the county board of revision to the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals (“BTA”), despite a prohibition of such appeals that was enacted as part of Am.Sub. H.B. No. 126, which became effective on July 21, 2022. The Marysville decision will control eight other appeals pending before the high court, and it will allow some two hundred appeals pertaining to tax year 2021 and earlier to proceed before the BTA. However, the prohibition against appeals by school boards will apply to cases addressing tax year 2022 and after.
Passed in 2022, H.B. 126 enacted several important reforms to Ohio real property tax law by limiting the statutory right of boards of education to file, for example, original complaints and counter-complaints at the board of revision. We addressed the H.B. 126 reforms in this previous Buzz post and in this previous Buzz post. In Marysville, the court addressed one of H.B. 126’s most important property tax reforms: a ban on appeals by political subdivisions (including school boards) to the BTA that applies when the subdivision does not own or lease the property whose value is at issue.
In reaching its decision, the Supreme Court rejected the property owner’s argument that H.B. 126 prohibited the school board’s appeal because the appeal was taken from a board of revision decision that was issued after H.B. 126 became effective. The court held that the prohibition of appeals “does not apply to cases in which a challenge to an auditor’s property valuation was pending before a board of revision when the amendment took effect.” Id. at ¶ 13. The court relied on its interpretation of the plain language of the appeal statute, R.C. 5717.01, as amended by H.B. 126: because the amendment tied the prohibition of appeals to a subdivision’s filing an “original complaint” or “counter-complaint,” as newly defined by H.B. 126, and because the prohibition applies to a subdivision that “files”—present tense—such an original complaint or counter-complaint, the court concluded that the legislature intended the prohibition of appeals “to apply prospectively, i.e., to cases filed with a board of revision after the amendment took effect.” Id. at ¶ 14, 18. Justice Fischer’s lone dissent contested the majority’s interpretation of the amended appeal statute; contrary to the majority, the dissent read the amendment as identifying “who” is subject to the appeal prohibition without raising any implication about “when” or “how” such an appeal may be filed. Id. at ¶24, 26.
In effect, the Supreme Court’s decision delays the application H.B. 126’s prohibition of such appeals to later board of revision decisions that address original complaints or counter-complaints that were filed for tax year 2022 and after.
For those later tax years, the school boards have attempted an alternative appeal route: appeal from the boards of revision to the common pleas courts pursuant to R.C. 2506.01. To date, courts have dismissed those appeals, but on August 28, 2024, the Ohio Supreme Court accepted jurisdiction to hear two appeals from appellate decisions that upheld such dismissals. Those consolidated cases are pending as Nos. 2024-814 and 2024-815 on the Supreme Court’s docket, and the court also accepted jurisdiction in 34 appeals presenting the same issue, which it is holding pending its decision in the lead cases. Stay tuned for further developments!
Zaino Hall & Farrin LLC defends property owners against property tax valuation complaints and assists with filing complaints to correct the over-valuation of property by county auditors. If you have any questions about the Marysville decision, the status of H.B. 126 reforms, or any other real property tax matters, please contact our knowledgeable ZHF professionals.