Two Lordstown council members sponsor legislation limiting tax abatements

By Ed Runyan

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

Two Lordstown Village Council members are proposing legislation that would limit village tax abatements to no more than 50 percent abatement of property taxes over 10 years.

Councilman Robert Bond said the legislation, which was given a first reading at Monday’s village council meeting, would reduce the amount of time an abatement can last from 15 years to 10.

The village approved a high-profile tax abatement Jan. 1 for the 1.2 million-square-foot, $140 million to $170 million TJX/HomeGoods distribution center now under construction on Hallock Young Road.

Trumbull County commissioners later gave the abatement, also known as an enterprise-zone agreement, the final go-ahead. It was a 75-percent, 10-year abatement.

Bond and Councilwoman Karen Jones made the process of approving the abatement take longer than it otherwise would have by voting against allowing it to be approved as an emergency. Bond and Jones are the sponsors of the new legislation.

Jones said last January she has disliked abatements over the years because “I think this is killing our school systems all over the state, probably other states as well. I think abatements should be outlawed on a federal level so everybody’s on the same plane.” Lordstown Schools gets more of the revenue from property taxes than other government entities, such as the village.

Bond said in January and again in a recent interview that Jackson Township, Mahoning County, Lordstown’s neighbor to the south, offers “no tax abatements whatsoever” and is still attracting jobs.

He said last week he thinks 10 years is enough because “usually a business knows in the first two to three years if it will make it.”

He acknowledged that Jackson Township is attractive to industry because it has no income tax, but the point of reducing the amount of abatement in Lordstown is to “level the playing field” between Jackson Township and Lordstown.

Giving away less-expensive abatements will help with funding for Lordstown schools and other government entities that receive property tax money from Lordstown businesses, said Bond, who is running as an independent in the November election to unseat Lords-town Mayor Arno Hill, who is a Republican.

Hill said he doesn’t think the legislation will be approved.