Friday, May 21, 2010
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
YOUNGSTOWN
The Ohio Board of Tax Appeals has upheld a ruling by William Wilkins, state tax commissioner, that Oakhill Renaissance Place didn’t qualify for a real-estate tax exemption before Mahoning County bought the former hospital.
The commission ruled Tuesday that Oakhill’s previous owner, the Southside Community Development Corp., did not qualify for an exemption because “the property was not used exclusively for a charitable purpose.”
Oakhill is the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, which the county bought in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in 2006 after SCDC filed for Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy. Under SCDC ownership, Oakhill had a mixture of for-profit and nonprofit and government-agency occupants.
When the county bought Oakhill, the real-estate tax bill from prior years had accumulated to $421,000.
The appeal was filed by bankruptcy trustee Andrew Suhar; and the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the county lacked the authority to intervene or step into SCDC’s shoes because it didn’t own the property during the period of disputed taxes.
“We still are optimistic that we’re going to resolve this to the favor of the county,” said county Administrator George J. Tablack.
“The county continues to pursue remedies of this case that we believe are equitable, that being that these taxes should not be owed, and we’re working other avenues to try to achieve that end result,” he said, declining to elaborate.
“One of the issues that I raised in ’06 against Oakhill was the building doesn’t cost us a mere $75,000,” which was the official purchase price, said county Auditor Michael V. Sciortino. “This is one of the issues that I raised when I brought up arguments against [buying] the building.”
When the county bought Oakhill, it agreed to be responsible for more than $900,000 worth of mortgages and liens on the property, including the tax bill if the tax appeal were unsuccessful.
If the real-estate tax bill is paid, about 68 percent of the money would go to the Youngstown city schools, another 10 percent to 12 percent to the city government, and smaller percentages to the county mental-health and children-services boards, public libraries and the Western Reserve Transit Authority, said county Treasurer Lisa A. Antonini.