School taxes must be shared among districts, Ohio Supreme Court rules

CLEVELAND  — The next article was initially revealed within the Ohio Capital Journal and revealed on News5Cleveland.com underneath a content-sharing settlement.

Two Cleveland-area faculties can be required to share taxes based mostly on a decades-old settlement, regardless of the deal not being permitted by the state board of training, based on a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Courtroom.

Warrensville Heights Metropolis Faculty District and Beachwood Metropolis Faculty District had been tied in a authorized dispute over years of tax revenues, with Beachwood saying they have been owed greater than $5 million from their fellow faculty district.

The disagreement stems from the annexation by the Beachwood district of greater than 400 acres of land that was a part of of the Warrensville Heights district in 1990. Beachwood requested for the state faculty board’s approval of the land switch at the moment, beginning years of negotiation between the 2 districts.

That settlement got here in 1997, when a retired decide chosen as mediator between the faculties really helpful the land keep throughout the Warrensville Heights district, however that the tax revenues from the land be shared. Warrensville Heights would obtain 70% of property tax revenues, and Beachwood would obtain 30%.

Native faculty boards permitted of the transfer, however the state board of training wasn’t requested to enter an opinion on the matter.

Beachwood got here to the courts in 2018, claiming Warrensville Heights refused to share tax revenues from 2012 to 2017. On the time, a court docket sided with Warrensville in saying faculty officers in 1997 couldn’t “contract over the switch of tax {dollars}” with out state faculty board approval.

In the latest ruling by the state supreme court docket, the vast majority of justices disagreed, saying state faculty board approval wasn’t required by regulation for the 2 districts to share tax income “and that the absence of such approval doesn’t render the settlement unenforceable.”