What the candidates for governor have said about your tax bill
What the candidates for governor have said about your tax bill
2026-09-15 · Ohio · Legislation · Reported — unconfirmed
Reported: Ohio's two candidates for governor have said nothing on the record about homeowners associations, condominiums, covenants or association regulation. What they have said bears on association households, and one line points at where Ohio property-tax law actually moves next.1
The election is November 3, 2026. Vivek Ramaswamy is the Republican candidate; Amy Acton is the Democratic candidate.
The Republican position, in his own words
In an interview recorded September 3, 2026, Ramaswamy set out the shape of his property-tax proposal:
“What I've said is in aggregate. And this is going to be subject to the legislation next year—in aggregate on net. The net effect is the property tax base is going to be rolled back in aggregate to where it was before the end of the pandemic. Another thing that I want to get in that legislation is that we're going to cap the growth from there to make sure that we don't repeat the same mistakes we made this time around. And I think that puts this issue behind us.”
On the constraint he has set himself: “I'm also confident that we can do it without hurting local police, fire or schools, which is really important to me.”
And on school funding structurally:
“What I favor is a statewide component of funding that gradually weans us off of exclusive reliance on local property taxation as the main way to fund our schools. I don't think an education system that is almost exclusively or largely funded exclusively by local property tax revenue is the right long-run model for our state. So I'm not saying that's an immediate change, but that is a long-run goal that I'm oriented towards.”
The reporting that carried those quotes also records what was not said: he described the rollback as the largest property tax cut anywhere in the United States but “wouldn't put a dollar figure on it, or say how that would affect levies approved by local voters since 2021.” He is also reported to have moved off an earlier position of eliminating property taxes entirely.
The Democratic position
Acton is reported to favour targeted relief rather than an across-the-board rollback: an expanded homestead exemption, a rebate triggered when a qualifying homeowner's bill rises more than 4 percent in a year, and full funding of the Fair School Funding Plan. Her campaign has characterised the Republican proposal as a scheme that would gut schools, healthcare and public safety.
We were not able to obtain that position in her own words, and it should be read as reporting rather than a direct statement.
Nothing in the campaign changes what an association may charge. Our Ohio assessment limits page covers that.
The five words that matter for a board
“Subject to the legislation next year.”
That is the most concrete pointer available about Ohio property-tax policy. Whatever happens, it happens in the 137th General Assembly, convening January 2027 — not in the four remaining session days of the current one, and not at the November ballot, which carries no statewide property-tax or housing measure at all.
For an association budgeting for 2027, that means the tax environment its members face in January 2027 is the one already enacted: the December 2025 five-bill package, the phased partial exemption replacing the old rollbacks, the reappraisals in thirteen counties, and the one-time $350 million homestead credit gated by a November 1, 2026 county auditor headcount. Nothing a candidate says changes any of those. Our Ohio assessment limits page covers the association-side budget that sits alongside them.
The other race, and one detail that matters
The attorney general contest is between Keith Faber, currently State Auditor, and John Kulewicz. The incumbent is Andy Wilson, appointed after Dave Yost resigned effective June 7, 2026.
Neither candidate has said anything on the record about property taxes, housing or associations. One procedural detail is worth noting: it was Yost who certified the ballot title and summary for the property-tax abolition petition in May 2025. The office that performs that function for any re-filed 2027 petition will be in different hands. This line-up is reported rather than confirmed from candidate sources and should be verified before anyone relies on it.
The issue nobody is calling an association issue
Data centres are the other top issue in the governor's race, and they reach associations more directly than the candidates' property-tax positions do.
Ramaswamy has said he would require new data centres to generate their own power, with excess sold under a power purchase agreement. Pressed on whether that means free residential electricity, he conceded: “You'll pay for electricity—the electricity, the power component of the electric bill.” He is reported to be considering requiring “trees and vegetation around data centers to cut down on noise and to make data centers more 'visually appealing and visually palatable'” and would prioritise abandoned industrial sites “rather than virgin fertile farmland.”
Acton has proposed a moratorium unless facilities cover 100 percent of utility costs, build on brownfields and use union labour.
Any Ohio association near a proposed data-centre site has a direct interest in both positions — in the screening and buffering requirements, in the noise, and in what happens to residential electricity rates. The Select Committees on Data Centers are the only select committees either chamber has created this General Assembly, which is a fair measure of where legislative attention actually is.
What to do with all of this
Nothing, operationally. But when owners ask a board in November why their taxes went up and what the election will do about it, the accurate answer is short: the credits and valuations on the January bill are already fixed by law passed in December 2025 and June 2026, no property-tax question is on the fall ballot, and whatever comes next starts in January 2027.
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