Do you want to be an American? Good morning, Scott's sold with you here seven hundred W. Wellwy. And grinding it out.
Along with your getting ready for midweek here already first week almost in the books, or at least halfway there.
I'm being an optimist. I've been an optimist.
This kind dropped yesterday during the swearing in of many city officials. In order to address a thirty two million dollar budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, Mayor after a Purevall, wants city Council to place an income tax, a payroll income tax, on the twenty twenty six ballot, meaning if you work in the city, you will get an extra tax.
There.
The money is going to go towards public safety and what he called disrupting poverty whatever that means, affordable housing, investment in the underserved neighborhood, support for minority owned business and like Jeff Kramerding is here, council member and of course chair Budget and Finance. Happy New year, Jeff, welcome back. Good to have you. Hope you had a good break.
I did. Happy New Year. It's great to be back.
Yeah, all right, So there's a lot going on here. I think people will immediately hear new taxes and they blosh. The big picture is compared to peer cities, hell, compared to Ohio cities, Cincinnati is still pretty good. Now, I'll put a astros next to that, simply because we also have the county taxes we have. You know, pot property taxes are driving people crazy. Right now, we're paying museum taxes, school tech and let you add it all up, and
it's a pretty good chunk of money. But the bird's eye view is that comparatively speaking among peer city, Cincinnati is still pretty good on this right.
Yeah. I mean, just from the city and perspective, we are very good. You know, all of our most of our revenue comes from the Arnis tax. We're at one point eight. All of our peer cities in IRA at two point five, So there's substantially bringing in a higher tax rates than we do in the city.
Of same time, though, you look at how much people are going to pay more in property taxes and you just you feel the bite. You can look at the numbers and go, hey, that's great, but it seems like I'm paying way more than that I should be at this point, and I'm sure you're sensitive to that.
I am I understand. I understand that, and in going to or door and talking to voters that that is a dynamic. But you have citizens that are frustrated by you know, by by litter and by other issues, and you say, well, we've got to keep our earn tacks artificially low. But the tacks are too high. So that puts us in a very difficult spot. But it is the reality, and I understand it well.
And I think this is again the timing of this is kind of suspect too, or maybe not prime, and that is we just had the shooting of that eleven year old girl on New Year's Day at Laurel Park, and two and a half years ago we had another eleven year old boy that time murdered at the same park.
And the idea in September was, hey, we're going to appropriate all this money five point four million towards public safety, which may add to this issue of the thirty two million dollar budget episodell get into a second, but the takeaway I think for residents is whole hold on just
a second. We were spending this money. You gave you one hundred fifty million to put CAM one hundred and fifty thousand, rather put cameras in around this park, and we haven't done that, and no one knows why, and no one knows where the money is, and there are a lot of unanswered questions I had, and all beyond yesterday. She was confused by this. I'm sure you are as well. And so the optics of this, said Jeff Gramerding, are that, well, great,
they're going to take more money in my paycheck. But are they actually responsible with the money that I'm giving them?
Now, that's a fair question for yes.
First, I mean, what happened to the children is just unbelievable, a terrible trategy that has to be addressed. It's important that this has been and this has been a long term conversation. It has to be. This conversation began with the Cincinnati Future Session when business and civic leaders came and looked at the city's budgets. The report, which was very thorough which people should look at as a since the Future Commission I came out in twenty twenty four
and said that there is a very real need. The city's budget is not sustainable and they recommended two earnings access one point five to sustained the city's budget and one oh point one for housing economic development. So this work has been ongoing for two years plus, from my perspective, is dragged and it needs to be picked up and needs to be at a more deliberate pace. And this conversation is not directly related to what happened to the tragic incidents.
Yeah, it isn't, but I think of the minds of voters like, well, wait a minute, there's no accountability for the money that was already allocated for the cameras and now we've got literally have blood on hands, is a sense, because I don't know if it would have prevented the
murder of this poor girl, this child. But it's certainly not good from an optics perspective that one hundred and fifty thousand dollars supposed to go to cameras and no one knows who is responsible, why it's taking some there's just literally no answers. And then you come back saying, hey, by the way, we're gonna hit you with a payroll tax. It's not a good look.
Yeah, I understand that. And once again it's important to frame this in the big picture and what this money will go for. Keep in mind that the futures commissioning a very small earning stack, that's to still a hole, that's an existing gap in our budget. So I want to be very cautious. You know, if we're talking about a very small earning stack, we're talking about filling that
whole continuing service as there is. There's certainly no money for increased police or increased fire or increase public safety. So I mean, we just need to be very careful what we're promising and frame this very important large to beate.
Okay, so people hear this and go, all right, public safety, Yeah, we got to spend there. And disrupting poverty and neighborhood investment and affordable housing is big. But disrupting poverty and support for minority owned businesses and people and desertively, So look at it and go, what talk about accountability? Where's that money going? Is it more programs? Is it is it satisides? Is it just unaccounted for cash and we're
gonna we're going to pay off some people basically disrupting poverty. Going, Okay, it's one of the root causes of violence. But I also think that that is demeaning in a sense, Jeff, because the idea is if you're poor, you're going to turn to criminal activity, and that's just simply not true. Yeah, a lot of the people who commit crimes are poor, but there's a lot of people who are below the poverty line are close to it, that are suffering, that
don't resport to criminal activity. The idea that we have to pay people not to rob is I think that's insulting.
I agree, and I think as far as we talked about part of your expects used to fill a whole and part of it will it would be looking back to since the Future Commission talking about economic development and housing, they proposed a point one for economic development housing. The largest bucket of money I was for housing economic development in neighborhoods like Christville and Bonto where the city Sycay does not have the resources to create the development that
we want. So I think that I development like that, proactive positivelopment is critical is the foundation for of any crime and that's what that should be the core around any earning stack in any conversations throughound earning stack increase.
Council Member Jeff Cramerting, a Chair Budget and Finance, talking about the proposed payroll tax that I have to have mentioned yesterday and you got about I think sixty days to come up with a plan for this whole thing. Correct me if I'm wrong with the city. We operated without deficits through COVID and ore's federal money there too. But what specifically changed in the past year to create this thirty two million dollar hole. The rumor is it's police overtime, it's the crime issue.
I would say that that that's not correct. Police overtime is a big factor. But you know, this is the city's budget being unbalanced is the reason I decided to run for council four years ago. This, you know, you know, going back, and this is in the Futures Commission. We've been operating on about a twenty five million dollar deficit a year and a year out and we always find a way to paper overage. And this is going back,
you know ten years ago. Now the state government cut what is called the state and local government bucks the City of Cincinnati. It hurt other cities, That hurt all the townships and townships and cities had to make tough decisions. They had either had to raise taxes or they had to cut services. Painful, but they did here in the city, sin Sanni. I say, we did what we always do the city Sincanni. We put our head in the sand and hope the problem would go away. But it had.
So this problem has continued to grow a year and every year. You mentioned the federal stimulus dollars. We had that money from Washington, which let us paper it over for a couple of years. After that. From a revenue perspective, the city has just said boom years the last couple of years, and that's let us payer over this deficits.
But the problem remains. So we can either be proactive and address it now or wait till there's a recession, which will happen at some point and the city's be looking at very very real cuts and basic city services and possibly layoffs. So that's the reason I want to get proactive. Put a proposal in front of the voters, give them all the information, put our budget out there, which I understand nobody's aware of the realities right now.
We need to make voters citizens aware of that and let them make a conscientious decisions.
All right.
So, Lyndon Baines Johnson declared the War on Poverty back in the nineteen sixties. We saw how that worked out. Yesterday the mayor Aftered Puirreval said, this money, the thirty two million, good chunk of that is going to go to public safe but also disrupting poverty.
What does that mean?
Can talk about what disrupting poverty means to him? From my perspective, any earning sect needs fous on housing economics, development in neighbors where there's not development occurring. To me, that will be critical to turning around his neighbors and reducing crime. That's where I'm going to be as this conversation develops, and that's where I would encourage others to be.
Yeah, that just kind of scares me because that's just like, Okay, it feels good, but what does that mean disrupting We're trying to disrupt and pay people not to be poor for a long time. It's not working jobs in the initiative. Work seems to be a bigger issue, and certainly a sfordable housing fits into that as well. And I think people hear that and they're a little bit curious at the very least as to where their money is going to wind up going, because it doesn't hit you in
the pocketbook. So if crime doesn't drop, or we don't crush poverty, which isn't going to happen in affordable housing has not as materializes, how are you going to measure that success? You know it, we'll put throw money at it. But it seems there's again back to the accountability issue.
I think that that's critical here and that seems to be a thread throughout the conversations we have, whether it's poverty or crime is we'll take the money, will spend it, but there doesn't seem to be that much accountability.
If it doesn't work out, what happens, I.
Think, well, first of all, I think people should look at the futures submission because I think that there is a lot in there, and I think that we'll tell people that this is a very solid foundation to begin this conversation. You know, there's some stuff in there that is probably gonna be a non starter. There's definitely there is recommendations for a trash acts. There was a recommendations
to sell some golf courses and green spaces. We received a lot of negative and immediate feedback on those proposals, so we heard residents. But I think there is a lot and that people will like and will lead to positive change in the neighborhood. And that's me part of the conversation and how you structure it. When we did the railroad sale, we promised to put all that money into trust and lock boxes. That's been overwhelming successful. I
think every degree that was a wise move. That money is still in a lock box protected by city ordinance and state ordans. So if you're talking about an earning sex economic development, how thing you could do it the same way. So, yes, how we do this is be very important. The accountabilities can be very important, and that's me part of the conversation. That has to be part of the conversation.
Where's the line Je crame and doing this right and then driving people away. If you make seventy five grand, you're going to pay something like one hundred and ten extra a year, one hundred and fifties to twenty five. We're crunching some numbers in the newsroom and this is outline obviously, but someone like Hunter Green would pay an
extra sixty seventy thousand dollars here because of this? Is there a concern you're going to drive out the desperately needed quote unquote rich people that we often, I wait, just tax the rich more. But what happens is we saw in New York and other areas they move out is Kentucky Mason and are they becoming more attractive to people who are hiringcome earners and what does that mean for this?
Yeah, I think there's there's two points. First of all, the business community I believe in the city is very sensites that are for business leaders like Tim Spence. It's a third to come together and say, yes, this modest tax increase, this modest earning tax increase makes sense. I think that is a lot when business leaders say this makes sense, we need this development, we need some more money.
So that was the first thing. I think having the business community involved at the outset without politicians is critically important. And secondly, I'll point out, as we discussed at the outset that our earning SAX is much lower than any of our city. So you know, using that logic, every everybody's choosing Cincinnati over Columbus and Cleveland. Even with these increases, this takes me much lower than those other cities. So we'll still be winning compared to our other peers.
Right, Yeah, honesty, that's fair too, is that you know, business is moving out, and that's what the concern is. We've seen some high profile businesses move and it might be because of crime, but this just adds another reason to do that.
That's the scary part for you guys.
Yeah, I agree with you, don't like to raise taxes. That's a factor. But I think, uh, having a safe, vibor liberal city is going to be more important for businesses and equally important for potential employees than a sect. But that's only part of the conversation looking forward. I don't want to west over that and say it's not a factor. It's definitely got to be part of the conversation as we've perceived for the next couple of months.
Yeah, is the is the timing on this a little bit sus in the sense that hey, you just got re elected, things are great, and now we're going to hit you with this tax took literally days the same day that everyone is has been sworn in.
They want to get this going within sixty days.
So the report came out in the spring of twenty twenty four. There was a conversation about going to about into twenty four two years ago, there is a conversation about going to about in twenty twenty five last year when we are on the ballot and there is never enough consensus to do that, which is fine, this has to be done right, but you know, raising taxes, talking about taxes is present. There's never going to be a
perfect time. So at some point of the city we're going to have to decide to do this, be bold and aggressive and put something before the voters. You know as a politician that this is not going to be popular, This is not going to be this is not going to be a fun conversation. I realized that I knew what I was getting into, but it's one that the city has to have. So I am not wedded to going in the spring or the all. But you know, I will point out that this is now drug lunch
for two years. I want to get it right. And if there's hard conversations going on, if people around the table really look at this, that's fine. But if we're just waiting for the sake of waiting, then I think that's unacceptable.
One of the things the Futures Commission call FORER was a trash collection fee.
It's never been done.
Resalizing the water works that's going to require voter approval obviously, and those are difficult politically because it just feels like, you know, hey, here's another tax. One of those go on the belt because voters might might ask reasonably, why should we approve a tax increase, wanting to try other revenue options.
The Future's Commission recommended.
Yeah, so there's a lot of recommendations. As I said, I mean, I will not lie. The trash check received a lot of negative feedback. So you know, I've noted that waterworks. You know, that's very complex. It's going to take a lot of steps. That's not a tax, but some sort of regionalizing water works and so it's not solely under the city. You know, if that's complex, but there's no reason we should not start that conversation. These are again difficult conversations, but you know, we're here to
have difficult conversations. So I think I know that before this conversation, people are going to want to know that many things are ongoing, including looking at water, including looking into the pension system, solvents. The Office of Strategic Growth definitely was a focused point of the Futures Commission that has not been done. I would expect there to be quick progress on that front before this thing get gets to memental because that's one a critical item that was
in the Future Commission. There are other items in there that are equally important that we can have to have progress on to make this work.
Yeah, and the Future Commission did their report. You got sixty days to put something together per the mayor to get it to voters. Hopefully it becomes more clear because we honestly deserve to know what disrupting poverty means. And you know, neighborhood investment and support for businesses and that those are all vague and there's got to be more specifics to that whole thing. Otherwise it just feels like, hey, you're asking for money and there's going to be no accountability.
Hopefully you can get that address.
Jeff Cramerton share a Budget and Finance of the City of Cincinnati Council Member.
Thanks again for the time. Appreciate it.
Ah, it's great, great to be with you and your listeners.
See.
Well, thanks, We've got to get a news update in and I know it's coming at you in all directions. The big picture, of course is yeah, these city taxes are relatively low compared to other cities in Ohio and certainly peer cities, so there's room there, but no one wants to pay more taxes, and especially you know, with property taxes and the county digging into your pocket a
little bit more. You know, you start talking about, now I gotta pay for trash, I gotta pay for this, that it all adds up, even though the technical it's not. You know, it's just another tax I don't care what they call it, but it just feels that way, and perception, of course, is reality.
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