After a big fight over a sales tax increase last year, Hamilton County is about to do it all again.
County Administrator Jeff Aluotto is proposing a .25% sales tax increase in order to cover the $20 million the county lacks to cover its budget of $276 million.
The proposal would extend a 2014 tax increase, which moved the county sales tax up .25% to 7%. It currently is set to run out in 2020. The administrator estimates the tax will generate $20 million in revenue during the last six months of 2020, and $40 million the year after that.
This is a bit of a bait and switch. The original 2014 tax increase came via referendum. The people of Hamilton County voted for the tax under the notion it was meant to help fund $213 million in renovations for Union Terminal. But it has paid for that already.
This proposal, should it garner the approval of the 3 Democrat County Commissioners, could be put to a people’s vote in March 2020, if the public gathers 339,000 signatures (10% of the population who voted in the previous gubernatorial election).
There is also tax and election news for Cincinnati:
“The city of Cincinnati’s 0.3 percent transit earnings tax would be repealed if Hamilton County voters decided to replace it with a sales tax by the November 2020 election, a charter amendment by Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld proposes.”
This would be a big change for SORTA (Southwest Ohio Regional Transportation Authority) funding.