Salem council will hear mayor’s income-tax plan
The same proposal was defeated earlier this year.
SALEM — Council will at least hear Mayor Jerry Wolford’s plan for a half-percent income tax for four years for capital improvements.
Wolford suggested the idea during Tuesday’s council meeting.
He said it was a replay of the request he made at the start of this year.
Councilman K. Bret Apple said when the issue was brought up earlier in the year, he and Councilwoman Rita O’Leary voted in favor of it.
The other five council members voted against it.
Under the revived plan, Wolford said, the city would do a variety of road and other projects.
A list would be kept of the completed projects to show taxpayers where their money was spent.
“We could look it up,” Wolford said.
The city’s 1 percent income tax now brings in $4 million a year, according to Robert Tullis, city treasurer.
That’s about what the income tax has generated in recent years.
Wolford said the proposed half-percent income tax increase would bring in about $1.7 million a year, based on the present economic conditions. The mayor said that was the estimated amount the tax would bring in because income taxes are about 5 percent lower because of the poor economy. That could also change if income tax collections rise or fall over four years if council approves the idea.
Council decided to meet as a committee of the whole with the mayor at 7 p.m. June 25 to hear his proposal.
Other communities have similar taxes, but less revenue:
UEast Palestine has a 1 percent income tax that brings in about $867,000 a year.
UColumbiana residents pay a 1 percent income tax that brought in $1.8 million last year, but the community is looking at a slight decline in revenue, to $1.7 for 2009.
ULisbon’s 1.5 percent income tax comes brings in $1 million a year.
In other action, Geoffrey Goll of the city’s utilities commission gave an update of the commission’s battle with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency over phosphorus levels in the city water.
The OPEA wants to see the levels lowered, which could cost the city from $6 million to $10 million, according to Goll.
The case began in 2002 and has gone through the state court system.
Goll said the OEPA has now begun saying that phosphorus levels are set by the federal government.
Goll indicated that more court action may take place.
“We’re not doing this just to be stubborn,” he said.
wilkinson@vindy.com