Issue 4 of 12
Ohio's biggest property tax bill. 75 cents of every dollar goes to schools.
The typical Delaware County homeowner pays about $7,132 a year in property tax, the highest median bill of Ohio's 88 counties. That is not because the rate is highest here. It is because the homes are worth the most. Schools and the career center get 74.6 cents of every dollar; the county's general fund keeps 1.7 cents. Ryan will keep the county's slice small and disciplined, and explain the rest of the bill plainly enough that nobody can use your confusion against you.
See where your dollar goes ↓$7,132
The median annual property tax bill, the highest of Ohio's 88 counties, on a median home worth $445,500. Census figures, 2024 five-year estimates.
U.S. Census ACS via Tax Foundation, March 16, 202675%
The share of every property tax dollar that goes to school districts and the career center: 74.6 cents, by the county Auditor's own breakdown. The county general fund keeps 1.7 cents.
Delaware County Auditor, 2023$6.9 million
What the commissioners' own tax rollback saves property owners on 2026 bills. The board has left half a mill uncollected four years running, and renewed it again for a fifth.
Delaware County, August 18, 2025Heads up
Your value is about to move again.
Ohio revalues every county on a fixed cycle: a full reappraisal every six years with a statistical update in between. Delaware County's 2023 reappraisal raised residential values about 34 percent. The triennial update takes effect for tax year 2026, which means it shows up on the bills you pay in 2027, and the next full reappraisal comes in 2030. If you live in a school district at the 20-mill floor, value growth flows into your bill; a new state inflation credit now blunts part of that. If you think your new value is wrong, the Board of Revision takes complaints from early January through March 31.
Timeline per the county Auditor's January 16, 2026 statement and the Ohio Department of Taxation schedule, both linked in the sources.
The data
Three charts that explain your bill.
Who gets the money, why some bills jumped while others barely moved, and how Delaware County actually compares to the rest of Ohio.
Where a property tax dollar goes in Delaware County
Cents per dollar of property tax collected countywide. The county commissioners you elect control the last line. The school boards you elect control the first.
The 2023 reappraisal: same value jump, two very different bills
Not at the floor
Olentangy, Dublin, Westerville
+4%
House Bill 920 absorbed the value jump: rates fell, and the levies collected about the same dollars.
At the 20-mill floor
Big Walnut, Buckeye Valley, Delaware City
+15 to 16%
The floor suspends that protection, so the value jump flowed into bills: roughly $1,100 to $1,200 more a year on a $400,000 home.
The 4 percent figure is the Auditor's; the floor-district dollar figures are the Columbus Dispatch's. Floor-district taxpayers now receive a state inflation credit on bills payable in 2026; the non-floor districts do not, because they were never exposed.
Highest bill, ordinary rate: Delaware against its peers
ACS 2024 five-year estimates; rate = median bill divided by median home value. Delaware tops the bill panel from the middle of the rate pack; Cuyahoga tops the rate panel from near the bottom of the bill panel. Hover any row for the detail.
Straight answers
What people ask at the door.
Why is my bill the biggest in Ohio?
Because the property is. Delaware County has Ohio's highest median home value, $445,500, and its highest median household income. Apply a fairly ordinary rate to the state's most valuable homes and you get the state's biggest bills. On the rate itself, the county ranks about sixth of 88 counties when computed from Census medians; Cuyahoga County holds the highest rate, about 2 percent, on homes worth less than half as much. High bills here come from property wealth more than from the rate.
Who actually gets my property tax money?
Mostly your school district. By the county Auditor's own breakdown, 74.6 cents of every property tax dollar goes to schools and the career center, 10.4 cents to countywide levy agencies such as EMS and 911, 9.6 cents to townships and municipalities, 3.7 cents to tax increment financing districts, and 1.7 cents to the county's general fund. The people you elect to a school board control far more of your bill than the people you elect to the county board.
Why did my bill jump when my neighbor's didn't?
Two mechanisms. A 1976 law, House Bill 920, freezes what most voted levies collect: when values rise, the rate falls, and the levy brings in about the same dollars. That freeze stops once a school district's operating rate falls to a floor of 20 mills; at the floor, rising values flow straight into your bill. At the 2023 reappraisal, Big Walnut, Buckeye Valley, and Delaware City were at the floor, so their homeowners saw bills jump roughly 15 to 16 percent. Olentangy, Dublin, and Westerville were not, and saw about 4 percent. Statewide, 477 of Ohio's 611 districts were at the floor in at least one property class as of 2024. A new state law now gives floor-district taxpayers an inflation credit.
Can the county just cut my property taxes?
Not most of the bill. The county does not set your value (the Auditor does), does not collect the tax (the Treasurer does), and does not vote school, township, or city levies (you do). What the board can cut is its own ask, and it has: the commissioners have rolled back half a mill of county tax four years running, saving property owners about $6.9 million on 2026 bills, while the county runs mostly on its share of the sales tax. Any candidate promising to cut your whole property tax bill from the county building is promising to control other people's levies.
What about the plan to eliminate property taxes?
It is real, and it did not make the November 2026 ballot: organizers fell short of the roughly 413,000 signatures required and are carrying what they gathered toward November 2027. The stakes are enormous. Property taxes raise about $21 billion a year in Ohio and make up about 95 percent of what school districts raise locally for operations. One analysis found full replacement would take an 8.24 percent flat state income tax or a 13.36 percent state sales tax, and the amendment includes no replacement plan at all. Ryan's position: real relief for people being priced out of paid-off homes, through the new inflation credit and stronger homestead protection, and a hard no to defunding schools with nothing behind it.
Where can I check this myself?
The Auditor's property search shows your value, your taxes, and an estimator. If you think your value is wrong, the Board of Revision takes complaints on form DTE 1 from early January through March 31. Homestead exemption and owner-occupancy credit forms are on the Auditor's site, and the Treasurer handles bills and payment plans. The commissioners meet Monday and Thursday mornings at 9:30 in the Historic Courthouse at 91 North Sandusky Street. Every figure on this page is linked in the sources at the bottom.
Levers and limits
What a commissioner can actually do about taxes.
Your property tax bill is set by more elected bodies than any other bill you pay. The first list is the board's real authority. The second names who holds the rest.
The board controls
The county's own ask. The board sets the county's $163.5 million budget and decides how much county millage to actually collect. It has left half a mill uncollected four years running, about $6.9 million back to property owners on 2026 bills, while holding dual AAA bond ratings, one of only two Ohio counties that can say so.
County levies. The board decides which countywide levies to place or renew, for services like EMS, 911, and the sewer district. A levy that has outlived its purpose only stays on your bill if the board keeps putting it there.
The sales-tax choice. The county's 1.25 percent share of the 7 percent sales tax is the general fund's workhorse, which is exactly what lets the county keep its property-tax ask at 1.7 cents on the dollar. Growth in that base is growth that does not come from your house.
Development deals that shift the base. Tax increment financing, reinvestment areas, and enterprise zones already route 3.7 cents of every dollar. Each deal trades current revenue for future growth, and each one deserves a public accounting of who bears the cost.
A seat on the Board of Revision. Value complaints are heard by the Auditor, the Treasurer, and a commissioner. It is the one place a commissioner touches valuation, and it should be fast and plain-spoken.
The board does not control
Your valuation. The county Auditor, independently elected, sets values on the state's schedule. In his own words: "Property Taxes are determined by the voters of Delaware County, not by the County Auditor." The board funds his office. It does not direct it.
School levies. The 74.6 cents. Elected school boards decide what to ask; voters decide whether to grant it. No commissioner votes on either side of that.
Township and city taxes. Townships levy their own property taxes. Cities add income taxes on top: 1.85 percent in Delaware, 2 percent in Powell, Westerville, and Dublin, 2.5 percent in the Columbus portions of the county.
State tax law. The 35 percent assessment ratio, House Bill 920, the 20-mill floor, the homestead exemption, and the five reform laws that took effect in March 2026 were all written in Columbus. Counties operate only with the powers the state grants.
School funding from the state. When the state runs its funding formula on frozen 2022 costs, the gap lands on local property taxpayers through levies. That decision belongs to the General Assembly, and pretending otherwise would be selling you something.
The plan
What Ryan will do.
Keep the county's own ask small.
Continue the rollback as long as the fundamentals support it, refuse to renew county levies that have outlived their purpose, and hold the budget discipline that earned the AAA ratings. The county's 1.7 cents should stay the best-run 1.7 cents on your bill.
Publish the bill in plain English.
A county explainer and levy calculator that shows what any proposed levy costs your actual house, before you vote on it. And the fiscal picture belongs in the public 10-Year Growth Impact Forecast, so everyone can see what approved development means for school enrollment and the levies that follow it.
Back relief that will not blow up the schools.
Make the new inflation credit work smoothly for the floor districts, and push the state for stronger homestead and senior protections, because nobody should be priced out of a paid-off home. And tell the truth about elimination: 75 cents of this county's tax dollar runs its schools, and a plan to delete it with nothing behind it is not tax relief.
If nothing improves
The 2026 update lands on bills payable in 2027, floor-district homeowners absorb another value cycle, and nobody in office explains any of it. Confusion hardens into anger, and anger is exactly what the elimination campaign is collecting signatures with. A county that will not explain the bill should not be surprised when voters reach for a sledgehammer.
What better looks like
A county where you can see your whole bill explained in one place, price a levy before you vote on it, and watch the county's own slice stay small, audited, and rolled back when possible. Relief lands on the people actually being squeezed. The schools stay funded. And the anger loses its fuel, because nothing about your bill is a mystery anymore.
Sources
Last updated: September 2, 2026
You should not have to take a candidate's word for any of this. Every figure above traces to one of these sources. A few of them (city sites, Policy Matters Ohio, the Legislature's site) block automated tools but load normally in a browser. Found an error? Tell the campaign and we will fix it.
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