Sales tax permanent despite 2013 vow

Franklin County commissioners on Tuesday unanimously approved making a temporary quartercent sales tax permanent.

In 2013, the commissioners adopted what they said at the time was a five-year, quarter-cent sales tax to be collected from 2014 through Dec. 31, 2018. It allowed them to pay cash for $220 million in construction projects — a new forensic science center and the first phase of a new jail — and provided tens of millions of dollars for economic-development and social programs.

Making the sales tax permanent is necessary, Franklin County Administrator Kenneth Wilson said, to replace $21 million in annual revenue that Franklin County lost because of state budget changes this year. It also is needed, Wilson said, to maintain the county’s excellent credit rating and to prevent service cuts.

“I don’t take this very lightly,” Commissioner John O’Grady said Tuesday. “My father taught me as a child, ‘Don’t break commitments.’”

But he said the state broke its commitment to the county. “We were cut by the governor and legislature,” he said.

“Somebody’s got to make a tough choice.”

Commissioner Marilyn Brown said she struggled with what to do, but added, “We are elected to make these very difficult decisions.”

Commissioner Kevin Boyce said if they didn’t vote to keep the tax going, the county would have less coming in than going out, and officials likely would have had to cut programs and lay off workers.

In Ohio, commissioners can impose a sales tax, but voters can fight it.

That would require a referendum, a vote of the public. That referendum would get on the ballot only if enough valid signatures — almost 30,000 — were collected from county voters within 45 days of the commissioners’ vote.

Harold Thomas, who leads the executive committee of the Libertarian Party of Franklin County, opposed making the tax permanent. He told the commissioners that he understands that they need to maintain social services, but he said they also should redouble their efforts to root out what a Dispatch editorial called “mission creep and bloat” in government operations.

He also suggested that the commissioners put the tax on the ballot for a five-year

$21 million will go toward the loss of sales tax revenue from Medicaid managed-care services $15 million will help pay for economic development and sewers $23 million will go to debt service on bonds for county jails, social services, homeland security and capital improvements

$1 million remains unallocated

renewal.

“They did not give us that opportunity,” Thomas said after the meeting.

The temporary quartercent sales tax raises about $60 million annually. Commissioners first approved it in 2013 along with a permanent quarter-cent sales tax that pays for day-to-day countygovernment operations.

That second quarter-cent increase was needed, the commissioners said, to stabilize county finances after a recession that caused them to use about $100 million in reserves to pay for services. It also helped pay for programs to feed the poor and treat and prevent tuberculosis, plus efforts to find a new home for the Board of Elections and support other programs.

Kenneth Wilson, the county administrator, said the $60 million generated annually by the tax will be used as follows: $21 million will go toward the loss of sales tax revenue from Medicaid managedcare services after the federal government told the state it no longer could charge tax

on those services; $15 million will pay for economic development and sanitary sewers; $23 million will pay for debt service on bonds to pay for the consolidation of the county jails on Fisher Road, for subsidies to social services, homeland security and justice programs, and for capital improvements; and the remaining $1 million is unallocated.

In other business, the commissioners passed a general fund budget of $451.8 million for 2018, up 1.6 percent from $444.5 million in projected spending for 2017.

That includes a 13 percent increase in the Franklin County Board of Elections’ budget, from $8.8 million to $9.9 million, and a 2.8 percent increase for the sheriff’s department, from $135.9 million to $139.8 million.

The commissioners also raised county water and sewer rates 1 and 2 percent, respectively, to mirror city of Columbus increases.