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County advises RG Steel $3 million in back taxes won’t be paid until analysis is complete
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office has advised attorneys for RG Steel that the Trumbull County Auditor’s Office will not be writing a check for $3 million in back taxes to RG until a recently hired attorney has reviewed the matter.
In an April 10 letter, Dennis Watkins, county prosecutor, advised Atty. Steven A. Dimengo of Buckingham, Doolittle and Burroughs of Akron that the $3 million payment won’t be paid until Atty. Michael Gallo of the bankruptcy firm of Nadler, Nadler and Burdman of Youngstown provides county officials with his analysis.
Trumbull County commissioners approved hiring Gallo on April 2 at a cost of up to $12,500 to analyze a decision by the Ohio Supreme Court and the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals that indicated that the Warren and Howland schools, city of Warren, Warren Township and Howland Township underpaid tangible property taxes from 2001 to 2003.
“If paid, the refund claim ... would impose a substantial burden on the local school districts and political subdivisions from whose tax revenues the refund would be exacted,” Watkins said.
The letter said the prosecutor’s office “suspect[s] and, indeed, hope[s], that there are valid defenses to this refund claim, submitted, frankly, on behalf of a company or companies that have ultimately departed from Trumbull County or ceased doing business, leaving our community with unemployed steelworkers and facilities, equipment and materials to be sold only for their value as scrap.”
The letter said the prosecutor’s office expects to receive Atty. Gallo’s analysis within “several weeks” and will be in a better position to decide what to do after that.
The auditor’s office says Warren schools would be the hardest hit if the refund is necessary at $1.537 million, followed by Howland schools at $525,000. Next would be the county at $445,000; Warren Township, $287,000; Howland Township, $203,000; Trumbull County Career and Technical Center, $70,000; Warren-Trumbull County Public Library, $17,000; Warren, $10,000; and Howland Township Park District, $5,000.
In 2003, RG challenged the amount of taxes it paid, and the matter went through the Ohio Board of Tax Appeals twice and the Ohio Supreme Court over the next 10 years before a decision was reached indicating that RG was entitled to the refund.