GEAUGA COUNTY, Ohio — Geauga County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday not to adopt “piggyback” property-tax exemptions, after weeks of warnings from local schools, townships and levy-funded agencies that the measure would trigger more levies and cuts to services.

Dozens of officials packed Tuesday’s meeting to outline how the exemption — which would’ve expanded homestead and owner-occupied tax credits on the local level, but provided no reimbursement to local governments — would erode their budgets.

Don Rice, superintendent of the Geauga County Board of Developmental Disabilities, told commissioners his agency alone would have lost about $317,000 a year.

“We understand that people right now don’t like taxes. We don’t like taxes. Nobody likes tax,” Rice said. “But it’s how you pay

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