HAMILTON, Ohio — At the recent 2015 Butler County Farm Bureau legislative meeting farmers were angry about what current agricultural use values (CAUV) has done to their taxes.

Two Ohio Farm Bureau representatives explained why changes to the CAUV program had to be made methodically to avoid unintended consequences. Still, Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones told the representatives, “I hire and fire a lot of people, and I would never hire you.”

“We all know what happened with CAUV values, and we saw what happened with taxes,” said Leah Curtis of Farm Bureau. “We have been working pretty much nonstop to make a change and make the CAUV program work better for farmers.”

While some changes have been made, Butler County land was reappraised in 2014, so the changes will not lower property taxes there until the next reappraisal in three years. Steve Schulte said some of his taxes had gone up 600 percent since 2010.

“That was mostly the woodland and marginal ground,” Schulte said. “A lot of the taxes went up 300 to 400 percent. They pretty much doubled in 2010, and now they doubled again.

“I paid 38 percent of my disposable income – 38 percent of everything I made this year is going just to pay my property taxes. I farm around 300 acres; about 80 acres is woodland and marginal pastureland.”

Dale Vizedom said he has a seven-acre spot of woodland. “You can’t get a teaspoon of dirt out of it; it is nothing but rock. The tax value started off at $12,000. This last one came in at $38,000 for that seven acres.”

 Kathleen Vizedom, his sister, pointed out the tax on the property where her house stood, not part of the farm, had gone down.

Mike Dittman said since 2010 his CAUV property taxes in Hanover and Milford townships went up 300 percent, and 447 percent in Ross Township. “How can a business survive when we are hit with a cost that doubles overnight? We’re in farming, commodities; we have no way to control the prices,” he asked.

Changing CAUV is a methodical process, interjected Tony Seegers, also of Farm Bureau. He called the conditions that led to this situation – that agriculture had flourished while the overall economy tanked – a “perfect storm.”

“The CAUV has been there for 40 years, and for the most part it works,” Seegers said. “Maybe something is wrong with the valuation. We’re here to listen to you – this is a membership-driven process.”

Jones said he had come to the meeting to hear what farmers had to say, what was on their minds.

“I’m not a farmer, I’m just a sheriff,” he noted. “I don’t know you very well but I would never hire you. All you told us is you can’t fix it.”

At this point, state Rep. Tim Derickson (R-District 53) said the Department of Taxation can tweak the CAUV formula. But there is a bigger issue.

“I see my roots with agriculture (growing up on a farm),” he said. “But here is my reality as a politician: There are a whole lot more folks that work in municipalities and suburban areas.”

When this argument comes up in public, it pits the agriculture community against everyone else who is paying taxes, Derickson explained. Agriculture is 1-2 percent of the vote.

“It is a hard sell to change the CAUV formula because there are not a lot of people in our camp. If you want to try to fix it overnight, we lose this battle in public opinion,” he added.