26 September 2018 Dearborn County Council Local Income Tax Increase Meeting Notes

26 September 2018 Dearborn County Council Local Income Tax Increase Meeting Notes

Present: Liz Morris, President, Dennis Kraus. Sr., Dan Lansing, Charlie Keyes, Ryan Brandt, Alan Goodman, and Bill Ullrich. 

Also present: Connie Fromhold, Auditor and Leah Bailey, Comptroller

The meeting room was full with about 50 seats filled and about 10 standing.

Baudendistel read the Title VI statement as legally required.

2 minutes per person to speak. 

Liz Morris read a prepared statement regarding the way Council operates and their respect for each other even if they disagree. 

Baudendistel read the resolution into the record. Public safety is proposed at 0.4% and Corrections and Rehabilitative Services at 0.2%. DLGF reviewed it and they incorporated their comments. 

PUBLIC COMMENTS:

Patrick Holland- disagrees with this as it’s too high and it seems to be financial mismanagement 

Richard Johnston- Asked if it stays in the county. Yes. And What it is spent on. Jail and also the Public Safety for EMS , police etc. We give off million dollar piece of property on US 52. You have to be conservative and I’m from the old school. Thanked them for their time.

Craig E Beckley- asked why they can raise it at the rate they did. Morris explained. And they could raise it only to a max of 2.5%. Back when he was Commissioner he implored Council to only spend it on the extras and not the basics. He wants them to reduce the exoenditure of gaming money from anything that would not benefit our children.

Jamie Fowler- Recognizes that they are citizens like her and wanted to know how they decided to double the tax we have now. Sh’ed like to know what their discussions were like. I’m getting federal income tax relief and now it’s going from one pot to another. This was a huge surprise- and it’s not because I wasn’t paying attention. Morris replied that the county has used Riverboat Revenue to supplement their budget. Umbaugh has told them that they need to do this even though they have cut the budget. The county will be 72/92 counties instead of 88/92 that we are now. Fowler said- Some of you didn’t agree.Keyes said- he didn’t agree. And he is not for this tax increase. Lansing said It would take 7 votes to send the savings account and a few years ago it changed to 4 votes. Fowler asked- Will this increase balance our budget? Close to doing that they said. Growth and Development and Rainy Day Fund and things like that is what Riverboat will be used for. Ullrich talked about our roads and what that expense came from. 20 plus bridges need to be replaced and the first 10 would take 8.3 million.

Joey Lynch- Clerk Treasurer from Greendale- commends the board and knows it was a hard hard decision. Greendale will benefit from this income share of this. LIT Local income tax is also charged to other people coming in to work here. In order to get infrastructure they go for matching grants to leverage what they have. She commends them for thinking of it. 

Lansing- asked how is the Public Safety Tax broken down for the cities and towns. 

Carl Stockman sp?- how did the health insurance get unfunded by a 1 million. Now that there are so many casinos did you not see this coming? The lack of foresight- your income is going to continue to decrease. Have you shopped your benefits? Do they have high deductibles and copays like we pay? My home assessment went up 25%, now this is coming in. It’s time to start thinking about the hard cuts. 

Donna Thacker- totally against this. You saw this years ago and yet you still went ahead and built this. She thanked Dan Lansing and Dennis Kraus- you voted against this building. This will continue to increase. You are going to pass this because you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. 

Glenn Wright- recorder for last 8 years. Gave the history of how he got into govt- Phil Weaver filled him out on how it runs. With County Council in charge of purse strings. Casino said if they came in they’d take care of the kids and the roads and bridges. Phil said- Once we bite the casino apple the taxes would keep going up. He said someone came to him- a single mom with 2 babies and pays $400. How will she get it? Liz Morris said- that person would be making about $70,000. Wright responded- Look at all the things they have as expenses. 

END PUBLIC COMMENT

Jason Semla ( sp?) from Umbaugh and Associates, the consultant for this tax. The Public safety Tax shares with cities and towns and the Corrections and Rehabilitative Services stays in the county with the jail. The .4% on Public Safety - the county gets $3.3million of the total. The rest is shared with the cities and towns. Jail and criminal element costing a lot per Morris. Keyes asked if cities were merging police. Not yet. 

Ryan Brandt- Council member- addressed Johnston- that property taxes go up when assessments go up. Agrees with Beckley that children are important to spend money for them. Agrees with Fowler but that 1.2% will get them closer to where they want to be. Can’t speak for 20 years ago when this was voted into the county. We should have seen the shortfall. Only so much money. Am a big supporter of Public Safety. Look at Bright. It’s not incorporated- the county covers it. Appreciates Joey Lynch that they are $511,000 short in Greendale. Looking for other sites and towns and what they are needed. He noted that the benefits  for the county are offset by their lower salaries. Addressing Donna Thacker- he believes the courthouse was needed. There will be no more capital improvements needed. The 3rd court was mandated by the state. This is not a Taj Mahal. It represents the public and the courts- it should be nice. Glenn Wright- this is different than it was 20 years ago- It takes money to run this county. Bonding the buildings would have cost more. We paid for it- we owe nothing on these buildings. 

Bill Ullrich- jumped in to agree with Brandt and thanked him for his service to this county. We kept kicking the can down the road. Now we have kicked it as far as we can. I wont vote for any increase beyond that. 

 AlanGoodman- been a small businessman all my life. The last thing I wanted to do was raise taxes. When I see bridges not being repaired, 911 needing repairs or sirens not working. When I have to choose which bridge to fix- thats a problem when so many need it. I abhor taxes. I have to fix these things. We are here to keep the citizens safe. 

Dan Lansing- I think we all knew this was coming. And I voted against this buildings. We spent our savings on them. I knew this was coming as a result. We spent 27 million in 6 years. We drained our savings. 

$5,390,539 is projected total from  the .4% for Public Safety

$2,695,269 is projected total from the .2% for Corrections and Rehabilitation 

Brandt motioned and Ullrich 2nd. Passed with 2 nays from Keyes and Lansing.

Meeting adjourned at 7:32 Pm 

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township