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 February 24, 2005

Testimony of the Ohio Municipal League in Opposition to HB 41 before the House Local and Municipal Government and Urban Revitalization Committee.

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I am John Mahoney and am Deputy Director of the Ohio Municipal League. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you and discuss HB 41. Though this bill could possibly benefit many of our members, we have always taken a position in opposition to this legislation for several reasons.

The first reason is that through this legislation, the General Assembly would take tax dollars imposed by the Council and voters of a city to provide services within that city and simply reduce those taxes for a certain set of taxpayers. This bill would reduce those dollars only in the case of a large city, such as Columbus. We think it is unfair to change the rules for a set of taxpayers who live in only our largest cities after they have voted in taxes with the understanding that those tax dollars would go for services in their community and be paid by all.

Additionally, this bill not only singles out just a small number of cities, but also singles out only one tax. If the reasoning behind this bill is correct, then should not those counties with the largest shopping facilities also give a credit to all those shoppers visiting from outside the county? Shouldn’t all out-of-district residents in a school district who own property in that school district receive a property tax credit for property taxes paid to that school district? 

In addition, though many of our communities are hard pressed to balance their budgets today and in the recent past, we believe the reduction in revenues that would be caused by this bill would have devastating effects on the budgets of Ohio’s largest cities. It is estimated that this cut would result in a reduction of General Fund dollars for the City of Columbus of $18.5 million, a cut equivalent to almost double the 20% cut in LGF dollars proposed in the Governor’s budget. It is our belief that the City of Columbus and our other largest members cannot long sustain such cuts and continue to provide the services necessary for either residents or commuters. Such cuts and the inevitable cuts in services resulting from such cuts will eventually render our largest cities incapable of attracting the very jobs that have made those cities the targets of this legislation.

Finally, as a matter of clarification, there was some discussion last week about “reciprocity” agreements, which, in a way, mirror the goal of this bill. To our knowledge, no such agreements exist in Franklin County or anywhere else in Ohio. Some of those agreements did exist, in Lorain County and parts of northwest Ohio long ago, but we don’t think any have been in operation for at least twenty-five years.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I’ll conclude my remarks and will be glad to answer any questions the committee may have.