Columbiana Co., Salem work on tax issues for November ballot

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Jerry Wolford

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Jim Hoppel

By D.a. Wilkinson

The county will have hearings on a sales-tax renewal later this summer.

LISBON — Columbiana County commissioners and Salem City Council are having trouble getting issues on the ballot for different reasons.

A noncounty mistake required the commissioners to reschedule two required public hearings before asking voters to renew the county’s 1-percent sales tax.

In Salem, Mayor Jerry Wolford said he was going to ask for meetings with council next week on a half-percent increase in its income tax. The city already collects a 1 percent income tax.

Council on Tuesday gave the first of three readings to approve the income- tax increase for four years. But council members seemed to have different opinions on the length of the increase and whether it is needed.

Wolford has said he wanted the income-tax increase to keep up with routine road patching and paving.

But the mayor on Thursday sent out a notice calling for a special council meeting at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The meeting, Wolford said, basically will be to give two allied ordinances a second reading to put the issue on the November ballot.

Wolford said the meeting and possibly a third meeting, tentatively set for Wednesday, would be needed to get the issue on the ballot.

Earlier this week, five of the seven council members voted for the issue.

Councilman Clyde Brown, D-at large, who lost the mayor’s race to Wolford, said he would not vote for the issue. He had voted to have the measure drawn up, but he said that did not mean he would support it.

Brown said he has talked to many people, and none was in favor of the proposed increase.

Yet another issue is that Councilman Dennis Groves, D-2nd, has said he wanted to make the proposed increase permanent.

Commissioner Jim Hoppel said a newspaper forgot to run the advertisement for the required county hearings. The commissioners will meet in special session today to reset the hearings.

One hearing will be at 6:30 p.m. July 29, and the second will be at 10 a.m. Aug. 5, both at the commissioners’ office.

Hoppel has said the 1 percent sales tax brings in about 44 percent of the county’s general fund.

The county initially won favor at the ballot for the 1 percent sales tax a few years ago by agreeing not to collect 2 mills on property in return for support of the sales tax.

Collecting the property-tax millage, which the commissioners could have done, would have raised about $3 million a year. Instead, the 1 percent sales tax brings in about $8 million annually.

Hoppel and other officials contend the sales tax is the fairest tax since it based on what people can spend.

The commissioners are going for an early five-year renewal. Hoppel said changes in state law next year would not allow collection of the sales tax until April 2011. The county has been collecting the 1 percent sales tax from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.

wilkinson@vindy.com