Two Butler County townships have filed tax increment financing resolutions to block the city of Trenton from capturing property tax revenue on a proposed $690 million Amazon Web Services data center campus, escalating a county-wide battle over who controls the financial windfall from Ohio's data center boom.
Madison and St. Clair townships approved TIF resolutions covering 600 acres of township land that Trenton hopes to annex for a second AWS campus of 18 buildings, WCPO reported Aug. 16. The move comes days before Liberty Township's new data center zoning rules take effect Friday, Aug. 21, requiring all future proposals to go through a public hearing and trustee vote.
What the TIF fight means
Under the townships' proposed 10-year, 75% TIF, three-quarters of new property tax revenue from the AWS project would stay in the TIF district for infrastructure. The remaining 25% would flow to schools, the county and the townships.
Trenton countered with a 30-year, 100% TIF. Under that plan, Edgewood City Schools would receive revenue equivalent to its full millage rate, about 60% of the total tax bill, according to Trenton Finance Director Matthew Mesisklis.
Madison Township Trustee Jeff Willoughby said the township approved its TIF resolution and notified Edgewood City Schools and Butler Tech, though the paperwork has not yet been filed with Butler County. He said the township retained a law firm with TIF expertise and is still negotiating with Trenton.
"Trenton didn't include us on their work with this," Willoughby told WCPO. "We really found out about it whenever the annexation was put on Trenton's (council) agenda."
St. Clair Township Trustee Dustin Gadd said officials did not learn of the data center and annexation effort until details became public. Both trustees said they would ensure Edgewood City Schools is made "whole" under the township TIF.
Why it matters locally
The fight carries direct implications for West Chester and Liberty Township residents. TIF districts divert property tax revenue away from school districts. Lakota Local Schools, which serves about 17,000 students across West Chester and Liberty Township, has a $223 million bond issue on the Nov. 3 ballot. Any precedent set in the Trenton dispute could shape how future data center revenue flows to Lakota.
Liberty Township trustees voted 3-0 on July 21 to require data center proposals to go through the township's planned unit development process. That zoning change takes effect Friday, Aug. 21. Trustee President Todd Minniear said at a June 16 zoning commission meeting that his biggest concerns about data centers are energy use, water consumption and noise, calling a data center approval in Liberty Township's largely residential community "a long shot."
At the state level, Rep. Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester) introduced House Bill 983, the Data Center Accountability and Citizen Protection Act, which would give residents the final say before large data centers are built. A broader bill, House Bill 646, which would limit local property tax exemptions for data centers to 50%, remains in the Senate Energy Committee until November.
The bigger picture
Ohio provided more than $550 million in sales tax breaks to data centers in 2024, far exceeding the state's original $130 million projection, Axios reported in May. At least 18 Ohio communities have enacted or considered moratoriums on data center development.
Construction on Trenton's first AWS campus, 141 acres purchased by California-based Prologis for about $7.7 million, has already begun.
Butler County Administrator Judi Boyko told commissioners the Ohio Department of Development will certify whether the AWS project meets requirements for an expedited Type 3 annexation petition, which requires at least $10 million in property investment and a $1 million payroll. No timeline for that certification has been announced.
