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Resolution would raise bed tax
YOUNGSTOWN
A resolution on the agenda for today’s meeting of the Mahoning County commissioners would raise the county’s hotel and motel bed tax from 3 percent to 5 percent.
The commissioners will meet at 1 p.m. in the county courthouse basement.
When the tax-increase proposal arose at a February commissioners’ meeting, it was met with a chorus of protest from the lodging industry.
A hotel owner and Commissioner Anthony T. Traficanti expressed their opposition to the tax increase on Monday after learning the matter was on today’s agenda.
“It’s a terrible idea. ... It’s going to hurt all the hotels in the area,” said Michal Naffah, owner of the Hampton Inn and Suites in Canfield.
When the sales tax and county and township bed taxes are added together, the extra 2 percent would raise the total tax on a room in Naffah’s hotel from 12.75 percent to 14.75 percent, Naffah said.
Contrasting that with a 9 percent total tax on hotel rooms in Grove City, Pa., Naffah said Mahoning County’s hotel and motel owners will lose business if the tax is raised.
The loss will be especially notable in the group tour and event market, where group organizers compare tax rates due to the large numbers of people they are making arrangements for and the high dollar amount the tax represents for the entire group, Naffah predicted.
“Trumbull County just backed theirs down 1 percent from 5 to 4, and Mahoning County is looking at increasing theirs. It makes no sense,” Naffah said.
Traficanti made the same observation, saying he believes the two counties should be in partnership, not a bidding war, when it comes to using bed-tax money to support the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.
“Why would we increase our tax when we send more money every year to the airport than Trumbull” county?, Traficanti asked. “Why should we increase ours when Trumbull County reduced theirs?” he added.
The Trumbull County commissioners reduced their bed tax last month from 5 percent to 4 percent to protest a $7,500 bonus that was awarded to Dan Dickten, the airport’s aviation director, by the Western Reserve Port Authority, which oversees the airport.
After Dickten refused the bonus, Trumbull Commissioner Paul Heltzel said those commissioners might reopen their discussion of the bed tax there.
Last year, the airport got $868,987 from the combined bed tax in the two counties, with $518,110 of that coming from Mahoning County.
“I question the economic climate here. Things are still not good, and we should be talking about reducing taxes, not increasing them,” said Traficanti, who is seeking re-election in November.
Traficanti also said he believes the commissioners should conduct public hearings, which would elicit public comment and more information about how the airport spends its money, before contemplating a bed tax increase.
John A. McNally IV, chairman of the Mahoning County Commissioners, who is not seeking re-election this year, and Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti, whose seat is not on the ballot this year, could not be reached to comment on Monday.
In a prepared statement in March, Scott Lynn, port authority board chairman, said the Mahoning County commissioners may be jeopardizing the future of the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, which uses the airport’s taxiways and runways, if they don’t provide extra bed-tax revenue to the authority.