The Jail and Our Schools

The new county jail campus off Transportation Boulevard sits on about 72 acres (Cuyahoga County parcel 542-22-025, 5400–5410 Transportation Blvd.) inside the Garfield Heights City School District.

Who decided

County Executive Chris Ronayne proposed this site, and County Council voted 8–3 in September 2023 to buy it for up to $38.7 million; the deed was recorded in April 2024. Here at home, Mayor Burke promoted it. He spoke for it at County Council in 2023, and in February 2024 he told City Council it was “probably the next biggest accomplishment we got.” He has said the campus is expected to bring the city $1.2 million to $1.5 million a year. That would be city revenue. Our school district has no income tax, and the biggest share of the property tax this land used to pay was school money.

What the law says

Ohio law exempts publicly owned property used exclusively for a public purpose from property tax (Ohio Revised Code 5709.08). The jail being built there is county property, and for tax year 2025 the county’s records list the main jail parcel as exempt county-government property. Once that exemption applies, the property tax this land paid while privately owned stops coming in.

What the land used to pay

From 2019 through 2023, the parcels the county’s land came from were billed between about $280,000 and $300,000 a year in property tax, and every bill was paid in full. About half of every property-tax dollar from that land went to the Garfield Heights City Schools, and about a quarter to the City (tax year 2023).

The schools’ share of what this land paid in 2023 was about $125,000 to $147,000 a year. At that pace, that is more than $1 million over ten years — money our school district either goes without or collects from the rest of us through its fixed-dollar levies. (My arithmetic from Cuyahoga County tax records; it assumes no payment in lieu of taxes.) The City gives up its share of that property tax too — about $60,000 to $71,000 a year in 2023 — though the Mayor has said the campus is expected to bring the city far more than that in other revenue.

What is not on the record

I have searched every County Council resolution and every City Council agenda from 2023 through this month, and the school board’s agendas as well. I found no payment in lieu of taxes, no host-community agreement, and no community-benefit agreement sending a dollar from that campus to our schools. If one exists, I will print it. Until then, that is the record.

Sources

• Cuyahoga County Council minutes, September 26, 2023 (R2023-0182)
• Cuyahoga County Fiscal Officer, MyPlace, parcel 542-22-025
• MyPlace tax records for the predecessor parcels: 542-14-002, 542-14-004, 542-15-002, 542-22-022
• DTE 515 Composite Reduction Factor Report, tax year 2023 (district 250)
• Ohio Revised Code 5709.08
• Garfield Heights City Council minutes, February 12, 2024 (mayor’s report)
• Ideastream, September 26, 2023; News 5 Cleveland, September 26, 2023
• Garfield Heights City School District board agendas (BoardDocs), 2023–2026

From The Ward 2A Report, Issue 2026-003. Dollar figures marked as my arithmetic are my own calculations from the county records above. If a figure here is wrong, tell me and I will correct it.