99 taxation workers notified about layoffs

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

As Ohio’s new administration seeks to close an $8 billion budget gap, the state’s tax department is moving to close seven regional taxpayer service centers and lay off 99 employees at those locations.

The workers were notified about the cuts by e-mail Wednesday, The Columbus Dispatch reported. “Please know that the governor and I appreciate the work you do in the service of our state during these difficult times,” state Tax Commissioner Joe Testa wrote.

The Department of Taxation satellite offices in Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown and Zanesville will shut down June 30, when the current fiscal year ends, Testa told the Dispatch in an interview.

“These are hard times and hard decisions,” the state tax chief said. “But for reasons of economy, we have to look very closely at all our operations.”

Employees learned of the layoffs just one day after Gov. John Kasich released a two-year spending proposal that would attack Ohio’s expected budget shortfall through a combination of cutbacks, program restructuring and privatization of public assets.

A union leader for tax workers argued that the closings would hurt 42,000 customers that visit the tax offices each year.

“Where are they going to go?“ asked Chandra Greever, of the Ohio Civil Service Employees Association. ”People that are culturally different, that are starting new businesses, that are behind in their taxes and need some help, that are senior citizens, they all go there.“

But Testa said the state can eliminate the regional tax centers because 80 percent of state tax returns are now filed electronically.