07.16.09
Debate tries to ascertain the why, how of Columbus tax hike
By Doug Caruso - The Columbus Dispatch
A debate yesterday over Columbus' proposed tax increase boiled down to two arguments between Columbus City Councilman Andrew J. Ginther and Republican political consultant Terry Casey:

• Does Columbus need a tax increase because it's been 27 years since voters last approved one or because the city has squandered tax revenues that have quadrupled since 1982?

• Should the request have been for a permanent tax to deal with a structural revenue problem or a temporary tax that would help the city get through the economic recession?

At a lunchtime debate sponsored by the Columbus Metropolitan Club, Ginther and Casey sparred over Issue 1, which would permanently raise the city's income tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent. Early voting has already started for the Aug. 4 special election.

Ginther, a Democrat who supports the request, said conditions today are much like they were in 1982, when Republican Mayor Tom Moody (supported by Casey) sought the last increase. Faced with high unemployment, city service cuts and a struggling economy, voters then approved an increase from 1.5 percent to 2 percent.

"The message then is the same as it is now," Ginther said, adding that voters should approve this request to restore city services and protect neighborhoods.

To point out the time since the last increase, he showed the audience of about 100 a photo of himself from 1982, when he was a second-grader wearing a Star Wars belt.

Instead of a picture, Casey held up a chart.

"One of the biggest myths in this campaign is: Woe is City Hall that they haven't had a tax increase since 1982," he said.

City income-tax receipts have quadrupled since then, he said. Meanwhile, the population has grown about 35 percent and inflation 105 percent.

"However you add it up," he said, "City Hall has had a fourfold increase in revenue while inflation has been a fraction of that and population growth has been a fraction."

That's true, said Allen Proctor, an expert on public finance who acted as the debate's fact checker.

But Casey left out the growth in Columbus' land area during the past three decades, Proctor said. That growth added people and revenue, but revenue growth has dropped off now that Columbus' annexations have slowed. Still, the city must maintain a much larger area.

Revenue is expected to fall next year for the third time since 2002, Ginther said, and eight of the 10 worst revenue years in the city's history have come in the past decade.

"We have a revenue problem," he said. "It's not spending."

He pointed to cuts that have reduced the city's civilian work force by a third, closed 11 recreation centers and chopped 75 percent of the budget in the Recreation and Parks Department and a quarter of Public Health.

Casey said the city has spent more than it took in every year since 2001, patching the budget with a rainy-day fund that's almost empty.

He said city leaders still must control costs in union contracts, including pension pickups that cost the city $43 million per year. Both Mayor Michael B. Coleman and the City Council have promised to do that.

Casey said he would have been more likely to support a temporary tax that could be renewed if city officials keep their promises, or a tax earmarked for the city's safety forces. As it stands, he said, approving the tax would give city leaders a blank check to spend $100 million more per year anyway they want.

Ginther said the city has always asked for permanent increases in increments of half a percentage point and this time is no different. He said the language on the ballot -- which designates the tax for operations, maintenance, new equipment and capital improvements -- is required under state law.

"False!" Casey yelled.

In fact, Ohio law does give cities leeway on the ballot to describe what an income tax would pay for.

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