Lorain/Elyria, OH
Voters reject Issue 4 sales tax hike
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SHEFFIELD LAKE — Voters overwhelmingly rejected a 0.5 percent sales tax hike that Lorain County officials insisted was necessary to avoid additional cuts to county services.
“It’s a tough economic climate and we knew that,” county Prosecutor Dennis Will, who served as co-chairman of the committee pushing the sales tax, told a crowd of county workers gathered at the Amber Oaks restaurant. “I think people voted their pocketbook.”
According to unofficial returns from the county Board of Elections, 57.7 percent, or 48,074 voters, cast their ballots against the sales tax increase, while 42.3 percent, or 35,302 voters, voted to approve the increase.
Charles Jubick of Lorain said he voted against the sales tax increase because he doesn’t trust county officials to spend their money wisely when times are good – or to remove the tax from the books if times get better.
“At this point in time, the economy is hurting and everybody is hurting so when everybody gets back on their feet they won’t rescind that tax,” Jubick said. “I need money, everyone needs money. I’m all for helping people, but I’m voting ‘no.’ ”
The tax increase went into effect in April but has raised less money than the commissioners anticipated when they enacted it earlier in the year after making $6 million in cuts across county government.
Those cuts led to the layoffs of more than 75 county workers, including sheriff’s deputies.
County Administrator Jim Cordes said more cuts will be necessary and will go deeper than those that already have been imposed.
“Last time was crippling, this time it’s going to be fatal,” he said.
Dan Strohsack, one of the laid-off deputies who is now working at the county jail and as a part-time officer in Kipton, said he hoped the levy would pass so he could return to a job he loved.
“It’s not only the county employees who will suffer, the whole county will suffer,” Strohsack said.
Cordes and Commissioner Ted Kalo estimated that the additional cuts, which will likely take effect at the beginning of 2010, will run between $2 million and $4 million. The final figure and where those cuts will be made have not yet been determined, they said.
“We don’t look forward to these sorts of things,” Kalo told the crowd at Amber Oaks.
Among the likely places that will face cuts are non-mandated services such as Lorain County Transit, the Lorain County Regional Airport and the county’s economic development apparatus.
When the commissioners made the $6 million in cuts for 2009 it was across the board, this time Cordes said the cuts will be more targeted. But he warned that it could still affect every department in the county, even those that already have been hard hit.
“The sheriff and the jail can’t take any more cuts,” he said.
The commissioners have been setting aside the money that’s been brought in so far by the sales tax, which the county will continue to collect through April 2010. They resisted calls to spend the money, which must be spent on the criminal justice system, to restore the cuts that were imposed this year arguing that if the sales tax increase was shot down they would need the money to stop deeper cuts.
Because of how the commissioners enacted the tax increase, they can’t attempt to raise the sales tax again until 2011.
In 2007, the last time the commissioners tried to raise the sales tax, voters rejected the 0.25 per-cent increase by a 4-to-1 margin.
In 2007 the commissioners had imposed the tax without declaring exactly what the money would be used for and hadn’t planned to present it to the voters, but opponents obtained enough signatures to force the issue to the ballot.
This time the commissioners and other county officials launched a massive campaign that spent about $99,000 by the time pre-election campaign finance reports were filed Oct. 22. Tax supporters expected to spend even more before Election Day.
Contact Brad Dicken at 329-7147 or bdicken@chroniclet.com.
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What did you expect? THEY shoved it down our throats!
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How about some investigative reporting by the CT.
If you look at the County’s financial report, it shows that the County has over $100 million in cash & investments. That’s not a misprint…$100 million!
Also, on page 48, there’s an audit comment about having too much cash in individual bank accounts (particularly with the risk of failing banks). Here’s what it says…
“Of the County’s bank balance of $28,894,251, $3,384,426 was covered by FDIC. The remaining $25,509,825 is exposed to custodial credit risk because it was uninsured and uncollateralized.”
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morons get what they deserve; unofrunately, it isn’t coming out of their pay like it should.
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The chronicle will not do any Investigative reporting because the mayor and the county have them in their pocket .
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Time for county workers to worry about a job like the rest of us common folk have had to do.
I see to much waste first hand from poeple deep inside the county GOV.
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It’s time the government fixed the leaky faucet before applying another band aid. When they can prove they are running efficiently, then the voters will give more taxes.
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The question now is, “who is going to go around and clean up all the yes on 4 our safety comes first” garbage littering the county. I’d be happy to volunteer, but one of Stammitti’s goons will arrest me and charge me with stealing government property.
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Well, I Hope all you people are happy now that the evil tax levy has failed and all those evil county workers have to worry about the future.
Fact is…..most of you people are correct about county waste here and there and some county workers being overpaid here and there.
But, only some of the waste will be corrected and those high paid officials and their salaries you all LOVE to hate and complain about WON”T be touched!
Not all of you use county services–but a lot of people desperately depend on them and it is they who will be hurt the most!
You people just don’t get it—-you can’t change government just like that!
It takes a vision, it takes planning and it takes it’s citizens to make it work–it can’t and won’t change just because you don’t like it or because you aren’t getting in on any of it—it just doesn’t work that way!
Yes—maybe you do need a new mayor–it’s loud and clear you won’t re-elect him again–BUT! It was YOU who elected him to a second term so it is YOU who need to do something about it.
He knows he won’t be re-elected and for the good of the county he could have bowed out before the levy issue was put to vote and maybe the levy might have had a chance– but that is if he really cared about the county?
So now it’s up to you the grassroots to do the job—and grassroots means ALL of you! You aren’t going to get anywhere if you think the other guy will get it done for you!
Yes, your officials did a bad job of getting the facts and consequences across to YOU the citizens BUT a lot of YOU citizens didn’t bother to educate yourselves, instead you just said you don’t want to hear about a new tax or just wrote it off as scare tactics.
Did any of you opponents bother to figure out that your city charter was amended for the last attempt a a tax hike and that amendment states that a tax increase may ONLY be on the ballot in EVEN years?
Soooooooooooo Johnny tell them what they’ve won……
You’ve won lots of cuts,
The cuts are coming!
The cuts are real and the cuts are going to hurt!
The leaky faucets won’t be fixed–they will be turned off.
And they are most likely going to hurt the little people—meaning YOU!
And there is NOTHING that can be done about it for TWO long years!
No changing your mind in the spring, No changing your mind next election year.
So when there isn’t a sheriff or policeman available to run to your fender bender or when your home burns to the ground because there wasn’t enough firefighters to handle more than one call at a time or the little city/county service you grew to like and depend on but didn’t even know or care who funded it disappears……………………
Just remember where your X was on the ballot!
It’s not the fault of the evil county workers, their evil salaries or their evil unions or the county officials you feel are so inept at their jobs—the blame for the future pain will be at the feet of the voters.
You’re not starving the county government—you just starving yourselves.
YES–Tax issues suck! and YES a lot of you have already lost jobs or wages and YES You’re county government needs a lot of work and change but this wasn’t the only way to make a point.
So now all you people who have been posting NOTHING but negative fodder and constantly pi$$ing and moaning–you may as well change your username now because when you start posting and complaining about all the cuts in the future–Watch Out! I will be waiting in the wings to post your pre election quotes.
So, instead of all the misinformed, negative, jealousy laden comments and posts why don’t you come up with something positive and productive yourselves………..or maybe you’ll just leave it to somebody else?
NO, I am NOT a county worker–I don’t even live in Lorain county–but I have been considering moving to Elyria–up until today.
I am an educated tax payer who has done his homework and research on a county where I had thought about relocating to, where I have many friends and family.
Hind sight is 20/20 my friends!
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The Serfs paid 25%. Just how much do you expect us to pay? Even if you do not pay “income” tax you still pay taxes…… Property, Sales, Social Security, Medicare, Not to mention the levy’s and bonds. You add in the “Sin Taxes” on alcohol and cigarettes. NOT to mention State, City, county taxes. The amount of tax on a gallon of gas…….. IT IT LUDACRIS!!! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Besides the commissioners shoved this down our throats after it was defeated in November 2008.
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Northcoastguy, lay off the weed man… Your long, pointless ramble was a waste of good reading time…
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Hanzo,
Actually its one of the most lucid things said on this site in a while!!!!!
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Well John, then you haven’t been reading…
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Well Hanxo the Razor, you have no idea what lucid means.
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