Summit County started mailing reappraisal notices on July 20 for all 262,000 of its parcels. If yours landed with a much bigger number on it, the first thing to know is that Ohio's got a rule stopping most levies from collecting extra when values rise. The second thing is that the rule's got an exception, and in 2024 it covered 78 percent of Ohio school districts.
Ohio does something pretty much no other state does. When a reappraisal pushes values up, a thing called the tax reduction factor, which came in with House Bill 920 back in 1976, cuts the effective rate on most levies so they collect the same money as the year before. Your home's value goes up 40 percent, the rate comes down, and the levy takes in what it always took in.
So the panicked version of this, where a 40 percent value increase means a 40 percent tax increase, isn't really how it works. Not even close.
Ohio guarantees every city, local and exempted village school district at least 20 mills of property tax for operating expenses. Once the reduction factor's pushed a district down to that level, it stops working. The Ohio Legislative Service Commission, which is the legislature's own research office, puts it like this:
"This 20-mill floor suspends the tax reduction factor as applied to either class of property once the reduction has reduced the total taxes charged against that class for current operating expenses, including both inside millage and voted fixed-rate millage, to 2% of taxable value in that class."
And here's the number that decides whether any of this applies to you. Quoting the Commission again: "In 2024, 477 (about 78%) of these school districts were at the 20-mill floor."
So for roughly four districts in five, that protection's already run out.
The Commission's own worked example makes it concrete. Say you've got two districts, both seeing a 20 percent value increase at reappraisal. The one already at the 20-mill floor "receives the full growth from that value increase, with a corresponding 20% increase in tax revenue." The one above the floor "receives growth only on its 5 mills of inside millage, which cannot be reduced by the tax reduction factor, resulting in only a 4% increase in tax revenue." Same reappraisal. Basically five times the difference, decided by which side of a line your school district happens to sit on.
Even where a district's above the floor, it was never total protection. The Commission lists what's exempt from reduction, and it's worth knowing which parts of your bill were always going to grow a bit.
| Part of your bill | Protected when values rise? |
|---|---|
| Voted levies for current expenses | Yes, until the district hits the 20-mill floor |
| Inside millage, the up-to-10 mills nobody voted on | No. Exempt from reduction under the Ohio Constitution |
| Charter millage authorized by a city charter | No |
| Bond levies, which collect a fixed sum for a fixed term | No |
| A new building or addition on your property | No. The factor only covers property taxed the year before |
That last one certainly catches people out. If you've built an extension, the value it added is new to the tax list, so it actually gets taxed at the full rate rather than the reduced one.
Honestly, the most useful thing here is knowing which fight you're in. A Board of Revision decides one question, and that's what your home is worth. It doesn't decide whether your bill is fair, and it can't do anything about your district sitting on the 20-mill floor.
So a complaint saying "my taxes went up too much" goes pretty much nowhere. A complaint saying "the county says my home is worth $340,000 and here are four similar homes near me that sold for around $290,000" is the one they're set up to hear.
Two questions, and only one of them is yours to win. Is the county's value wrong? That's the appeal, and evidence settles it. Is your bill higher than last year? Probably yes, and the answer to that one's in levy elections and in state law rather than at the Board of Revision.
Worth adding: we've measured 46,541 real Cuyahoga County sales and found the county's values running about 21 percent behind what homes were actually fetching. Roughly one home in five had sold for less than the county's own figure. So most people who feel over-assessed actually turn out not to be, and a reappraisal that catches values up isn't the same thing as a reappraisal that got yours wrong.
Value notices started going out on July 20, 2026, for tax year 2026. Because Ohio pays a year behind, they'll show up on bills mailed in January 2027.
Complaints run January 1 to March 31, on form DTE 1, filed with the Summit County Board of Revision. Summit takes them online through SmartFile, and a mailed form counts if it's postmarked by March 31. It's free to file.
And before you file, work out what reduction you'd be asking for, because your school district can only file against you if you're claiming $50,000 or more off your market value. In our Cuyahoga measurement, 81 percent of homeowners with a real case were under that line.
The reduction factor rules, the list of exempt levy types, the new construction carve-out and the 20-mill floor language are quoted from the Ohio Legislative Service Commission's members briefs on the property tax reduction factor and on millage floors for school districts, both downloaded and read on August 4, 2026. The 477 districts figure, the 78 percent, and the 20 percent against 4 percent worked example are all the Commission's own.
Summit County's reappraisal dates and its January 1 to March 31 complaint window come from the county Fiscal Office's own Board of Revision page and its reappraisal announcement. The reported increases of 40 percent or more in some communities come from press coverage rather than from the county, which hadn't published a countywide figure when we wrote this, so treat that number as somebody else's until your own notice arrives.
Also, our Cuyahoga figures come from 47,057 residential sales since January 2024 pulled from the county's parcel layer on August 4, 2026, with 516 likely family transfers and foreclosures removed. The method and its sensitivity are set out in our article on the $50,000 counter-complaint line.
Finally, a caution about scale. The Commission's example uses a district with 5 mills of inside millage, and yours may differ, so treat the 20 against 4 as the shape of the thing rather than as your own arithmetic. Your county auditor'll tell you your district's actual millage and whether it sits on the floor.