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Lorain City
2.5 of 5 stars overall · Ohio School Report Card 2025-26Lorain City’s school levies cost a home about $722 a year for every $100,000 of its value. Its pupils’ test scores rank 607th of Ohio’s 607 districts, and in 2024-25 it spent $20,981 per student to run its schools, well over the Ohio average of $17,609. All three are the state’s own figures: the Department of Taxation’s certified tax rates, the School Report Card and the District Profile Report.
Its homes are in Lorain.
What Lorain City’s school levies cost a home
$722 a year for every $100,000 of a home’s value, tax year 2025
That is Lorain City’s part of the property tax bill on a home its owner lives in: 20.63 mills, after House Bill 920’s reduction and the state’s rollback credits. A home the county values at $200,000 pays about $1,444 a year for its schools; at $300,000, about $2,166.
None of it is for buildings: Lorain City has no bond or permanent-improvement levy on the bill. All of it is day-to-day money.
Its day-to-day levies stand at 20.01 mills on the state’s 2025 rates, above Ohio’s 20-mill floor, so when the county revalues homes their rate is cut and they collect the same dollars.
A home’s value here is the county’s value for it, not a sale price. The homestead exemption, for owners 65 and over or disabled, lowers it more. The county’s, your city’s or township’s and any library levies are on the same bill on top of this: check your own bill for all of it, or see every levy behind this figure.
Homeowners 65 and over in the Lorain City school district
36% of the homes their owners live in, in the Lorain City school district, belong to someone 65 or older — about 4,500 homes, give or take 3 points.
Lorain County: 35% · Ohio: 33%
Owners who are 65 or older, or disabled, can claim Ohio’s homestead exemption, which takes part of a home’s value off the bill; most must have an income under the state’s limit. From the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 2020–2024 five-year estimates (table B25007, owner-occupied homes by the age of the householder). A survey, so every figure has a margin of error.
2Home values
What homes are worth against what they are taxed on
What homes in Lorain City are worth, and what they’re taxed on
Since January 2009, homes in the zip codes that make up Lorain City have risen 102% in value. The district’s taxable value of homes and farms rose 44% — not smoothly, but in steps each time values are reset — and inflation 60%.
How much each has risen since 2009
What homes are worth: Zillow’s typical home value in the district’s zip codes, monthly. What they are taxed on: the district’s taxable value of homes and farms, which moves when values are reset. Inflation: U.S. consumer prices.
- What homes are worth+102%
- What they are taxed on+44%
- Inflation+60%
| Tax year | Taxable value | Change | Values reset |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $763M | 0% | |
| 2024 | $763M | +40% | Reappraisal |
| 2023 | $544M | 0% | |
| 2022 | $543M | 0% | |
| 2021 | $542M | +20% | Update |
| 2020 | $452M | 0% | |
| 2019 | $450M | 0% | |
| 2018 | $451M | +6% | Reappraisal |
| 2017 | $424M | 0% | |
| 2016 | $425M | 0% |
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Taxable value is 35% of what the county appraises, for the district’s homes and farmland, so it also grows as new homes are built. Zillow publishes home values by zip code, not school district, so this follows the zip codes that make up the district, each counted by how much of it lies inside; a month in which one zip’s figure jumps by more than any market moves is left out. Values reset every three years, alternating a full reappraisal and an update, on Lorain County’s schedule. Sources: the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s District Profile Report and the Department of Taxation’s abstracts, Zillow’s Home Value Index and U.S. consumer prices (CPI-U).
3Levies & the ballot
Every levy collected here, and what is on the ballot
Every Lorain City levy still on the bill
These are the school district’s own levies. Anything else on the same bill — the county’s, your city’s, village’s or township’s, and any library, park or career-centre levy — belongs to someone else and is not in this list.
5 school levies approved by voters are still on Lorain City tax bills. The most recent was first approved in 2012, and the oldest in 1976 or earlier — the state’s records do not say which year, and why is below. Together they are 17.62 mills on a home its owner lives in, after House Bill 920’s reduction and after the state’s rollback credits — which is what is actually charged, not what the ballot said.
| First approved | Purpose | Mills on a home | Share of the district’s rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Emergency $3,126,190 a year | 3.115 | 15.1% |
| 1992 | Current expense | 3.603 | 17.5% |
| 1992 | Current expense | 2.464 | 11.9% |
| 1991 | Current expense | 2.379 | 11.5% |
| 1976 or earlier | Current expense | 6.056 | 29.4% |
| Never | Inside millage — no vote was ever taken on it | 3.010 | 14.6% |
| All | The district’s school rate | 20.628 | 100% |
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These all still carry the state’s credits
Ohio stopped paying the 10% and 2.5% rollback credits on new levies approved from the November 2013 ballot onward, and the state’s rate file marks every levy here as still qualifying. Every mill above is discounted before it reaches a bill.
What these purposes mean
Current expense is the day-to-day money — salaries, heat, buses — and it is most of any district’s rate. Emergency and substitute levies are also day-to-day money, written to raise a fixed number of dollars a year rather than a fixed rate. Permanent improvement pays for buildings and equipment and may not be spent on salaries. Bond repayment is paying back money already borrowed, usually for a building, and it ends when the borrowing does. Classroom facilities is the state’s school-building programme, where the state pays a share and the district votes the rest.
Why some of them say “1976 or earlier”
House Bill 920 — the law that stops a levy collecting more money when values rise — took effect in 1976, so that is the first year the state tracks a reduction for. Everything voted before it is filed under 1976 and the certified records do not say which year it actually was. Statewide, 610 of Ohio’s 611 school districts have at least one, and here they are 6.06 of these 20.63 mills. So the honest reading of that row is “half a century ago at least”, not “1976”.
Tax year 2025, from the Department of Taxation’s certified rates: the school levies on one real bill, in the taxing district holding the most of this district’s home and farm value. The year is the one the state files each levy under, which is when it was first approved: a levy voters have since renewed keeps its original year, and an incremental levy’s later steps are shown with the vote they belong to. Each purpose is the state’s own, spelled one way — the certified file files “current expense” under eight different spellings. Inside millage is the up-to-ten mills a government may levy with no vote, and it is the part House Bill 920 does not hold down. Why a bill rises when a value does explains the rest.
Lorain City Schools on the November 3, 2026 ballot
Lorain City Schools has no tax issue on this ballot, on the Ohio Secretary of State’s list of local questions and issues as of September 18, 2026.
How its earlier votes went: since March 17, 2020, voters have decided 6 Lorain City Schools tax issues — 4 passed and 2 failed. Renewals passed 3 of 3; of the issues asking for new money, 1 of 3 passed.
4Schools
Scores, spending and budgets
Test scoresSpendingSuperintendent payBudgetThe Report Card's figuresWhere the money comes from
Lorain City’s test scores: 607th of 607 districts
Ohio’s Performance Index scores every district on its pupils’ state tests, from 0 to 120. In 2025-26 Lorain City scored 54.1: 607th of Ohio’s 607 school districts, in the 90–100% band from the top. The state rates that achievement 1 of 5 stars, and its Progress — how much pupils grew compared with what their own earlier scores predicted — 2 of 5.
These are test scores, and test scores follow family income closely; Progress follows it much less. On the state’s own list, which also ranks community and STEM schools, Lorain City is 810th of 871.
| Year sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Overall activate to sort by Overall | Score activate to sort by Score | Rank activate to sort by Rank | Achievement activate to sort by Achievement | Progress activate to sort by Progress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-26 | 54.1 | 607 of 607 90–100% |
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| 2024-25 | 53.1 | 607 of 607 90–100% |
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| 2023-24 | 51.0 | 604 of 607 90–100% |
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| 2022-23 | 53.3 | 601 of 607 90–100% |
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| 2021-22 | — | 53.3 | 599 of 607 90–100% |
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Its schools, 2025-26
Of its 16 schools on the state’s list, Larkmoor Elementary School has the highest test scores: 69.0 on the Performance Index, 2437th of Ohio’s 2,933 ranked schools.
| School activate to sort by School | Overall activate to sort by Overall | Grades activate to sort by Grades | Score activate to sort by Score | Rank sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Achievement activate to sort by Achievement |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Larkmoor Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 69.0 | 2437 of 2933 80–90% |
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Helen Steiner Rice ESElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 68.3 | 2457 of 2933 80–90% |
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Toni Wofford Morrison ESElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 67.4 | 2477 of 2933 80–90% |
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Hawthorne Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 62.8 | 2589 of 2933 80–90% |
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Longfellow Middle SchoolMiddle School, grades 6-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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6-8 | 55.5 | 2720 of 2933 90–100% |
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Stevan Dohanos Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 55.2 | 2728 of 2933 90–100% |
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Lorain High SchoolHigh School, grades 9-12. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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9-12 | 54.8 | 2736 of 2933 90–100% |
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Admiral King Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 53.1 | 2762 of 2933 90–100% |
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Washington Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 51.0 | 2797 of 2933 90–100% |
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General Johnnie Wilson Middle SchoolMiddle School, grades 6-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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6-8 | 50.8 | 2802 of 2933 90–100% |
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Southview Middle SchoolMiddle School, grades 6-8. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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6-8 | 50.1 | 2818 of 2933 90–100% |
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Palm Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 49.2 | 2834 of 2933 90–100% |
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Garfield Elementary SchoolElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 48.0 | 2852 of 2933 90–100% |
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Frank Jacinto ElementaryElementary School, grades K-5,P. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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K-5,P | 47.4 | 2859 of 2933 90–100% |
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Success AcademyHigh School, grades 9-12. Each school year: its Performance Index, its place among Ohio’s ranked schools, and its stars overall.
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9-12 | 45.5 | 2874 of 2933 90–100% |
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| Titan Virtual Tech† | K,1-12,UNG,SN | — | 0 of 0 |
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† A school with no tested grades of its own — most often kindergarten to second grade — is ranked by the state on a stand-in: the later test scores of pupils who attended it.
Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, Performance Index and Value-Added rankings and the Report Card’s overall and component ratings, School Report Card downloads. Ranked here among the traditional districts (and their schools); a tie shares a rank. Every district and county.
What Lorain City spends per student
In 2024-25, Lorain City spent $20,981 per student to run its schools. That pays for teachers, buses, utilities and supplies for its 5,753 enrolled students; the cost of building schools and paying off their loans isn’t included. 57% of it went to teaching, the same as statewide. The figures are the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s District Profile Report.
It had the equivalent of 451 full-time teachers that year, 12.8 students for each, against 14.2 across Ohio.
The state’s School Report Card shows $13,161 for the same money, because it divides by weighted pupils: why the two differ.
Ohio overall: 57%
Ohio overall: 10%
Ohio overall: 111
Ohio overall: 14
What each Lorain City student’s $20,981 pays for
Where it went in 2024-25, in the state’s own categories, with its building category split into running buildings, buses and school meals. They add to the $20,981 per student to the dollar, because they are the state’s own split of it.
- Teaching$12,026 per student 57%
- Administration$2,934 per student 14%
- Running buildings$2,062 per student 10%
- Pupil support$1,485 per student 7%
- Buses$935 per student 4%
- School meals$886 per student 4%
- Staff support$653 per student 3%
Administration is the state’s category and it includes every building principal’s office, not only the board and the central office, as the state’s Expenditure Flow Model handbook sets out.
How that share has moved
The teaching share for this district, every year we hold, drawn as one line per set of the department’s definitions. The gaps are deliberate: the categories were re-cut in FY2013 and the pupil count changed in FY2022, so a line across either would draw a definition as a decision this district made.
Share of Lorain City’s spending that goes to teaching
Ohio District Profile Reports for this district, as published. One district’s single year can move several points and come back — a building project, a grant, a year a category was filed differently — so read the run rather than the point. FY2014’s revenue figures are a known bad workbook statewide; its spending figures, which are what this chart draws, are not affected.
- FY22–FY2557.32%
- FY13–FY2158.13%
- FY10–FY1255.18%
What Lorain City pays its superintendent
In 2024-25, Lorain City paid its superintendent $194,750, high for a district of its size: the middle half of the 39 districts with 5,000–9,999 pupils paid $168,671 to $190,074. With what a contract usually adds, the retirement pickup, an annuity and allowances, that comes to about $237,000. The salary is 2.5 times its average teacher’s, $78,361; in Ohio’s middle district it is 2.0.
Its treasurer, who keeps the district’s books, was paid $166,247, typical for a district of its size.
From 2005-06 to 2024-25, its superintendent’s salary went from $140,000 to $194,750: +39%, against +43% for Ohio’s middle district and +60% for prices.
Lorain City’s superintendent, 2005-06 to 2024-25
Salaries as paid in each year, one person in the post all year. A step is often a new superintendent. No point for 2017-18, 2019-20, when the post changed hands, was shared or was reported for part of the year; the line runs straight across.
- This district$194,750
- Ohio's middle district$135,594
The state’s figures; the package is our estimate. Every district in Lorain County, and how the estimate is made →
Lorain City’s budget forecast
What the district itself forecasts, in the budget it files with the state — the Fiscal Year 2027 First Required Forecast (Fall).
- Cash, June 30, 2026
- $10.1M
- Runs short
- Not by FY2030
- New levy in the forecast
- None
1.1 months of that year’s spending
on its own forecast, if its levies are renewed and no new one passes
it counts no levy voters have not approved
The full budget: cash, unencumbered and unreserved balances, and every line of the forecast →
Lorain City’s own notes and assumptions for this forecast (PDF) →
Why the state’s Report Card shows different numbers
Ohio publishes two sets of school spending figures, and both are the state’s own. This page uses the District Profile Report: day-to-day spending divided by the pupils actually enrolled. Lorain City’s School Report Card works it out differently:
- Its per-pupil figure is lower. It divides by weighted pupils (Financial Data Technical Documentation): students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students and English learners count as more than one pupil. In 2024-25 Lorain City spent $120,710,267 on day-to-day costs. This page divides that by the 5,753 pupils enrolled: $20,981. The Report Card divides the same money by 9,172 weighted pupils: $13,161. Its newest edition may be for a later year than this page.
- Its classroom share is higher. Its “classroom instruction” adds pupil support (counselling, nurses, psychologists) and staff training to teaching. Counted that way, this page’s figures come to 68% here.
Where Lorain City’s money comes from
2024-25: every dollar that came in, from every source — $19,898 a student — and who it came from. It is not all spent on running the schools in the same year, so it does not match the spending above.
| Source | Total | Per student | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local taxes | $21.2M | $3,677 | 18% |
| The state | $69.6M | $12,097 | 61% |
| Washington | $19.5M | $3,395 | 17% |
| Fees, tuition and interest | $4.2M | $730 | 4% |
| All of it | $114.5M | $19,898 | 100% |
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Where the money comes from is the state’s split, by the accounting code each district files it under. A district’s bookkeeping can put local money, such as payments from development (TIF) districts, in another column.
Property tax billed for tax year 2024, on every kind of property in the district (the career-tech district’s levies aside): $4,560 a pupil — of which the state pays $518 as rollback and homestead credits, and owners pay the rest. It is not a slice of the local line above: that line is money received in the 2025 school year, the two cover different years, and not every bill is paid.
Taxable value behind it: $168,569 a pupil, so each mill of tax raises about $169 a pupil. Where the state’s share comes from, including the lottery.
The rest of Lorain County
Every district with homes in the county, largest presence first. Lorain City is one of 20.
North Ridgeville City · Avon Lake City · Avon Local · Elyria City Schools · Midview Local · Amherst Exempted Village · Keystone Local · Columbia Local · Firelands Local · Sheffield-Sheffield Lake City · Wellington Exempted Village · Oberlin City Schools · Vermilion Local · Clearview Local · Black River Local · Olmsted Falls City · New London Local · Strongsville City · Mapleton Local
Lorain County’s own page has what its homes are billed and where that money goes; the statewide picture has the same figures for all 606 districts in the state’s report, the ones it leaves out, and what the data cannot say.
This is an estimate built from public records — not tax, legal or financial advice, and not an appraisal. Only your county’s own statement is authoritative about your bill. If you’re thinking of challenging your value, confirm the details with your county’s Board of Revision or a property-tax professional. The full terms.