The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

McLin: City won’t raise tax rate

Other cities, such as Columbus, recently raised income tax rates to avoid cuts.

Pay freeze, layoffs possible for city workers

Man, 68, drowns at Caesar Creek Lake
5/26/12
Water rescues prompt warning from health officials
5/25/12
Beach Waterpark sued for failure to deliver
5/25/12
Raleigh Trammell’s defense opens in felony trial
5/25/12
UD to move satellite campus to Dublin
5/25/12
> More headlines

By Joanne Huist Smith, Staff Writer Updated 1:41 AM Thursday, September 24, 2009

DAYTON — Mayor Rhine McLin said Dayton will live within its budget and will not follow the path Columbus took — an income tax rate increase — to eliminate a budget shortfall.

“We’re trying to keep businesses,” McLin said. “Columbus was different. They had tampered with their (cash) reserves and they were forced up against a wall.”

After a round of layoffs in late 2008 and early 2009, the Columbus City Council asked voters for an increase in the income income-tax rate to combat a forecasted $24 million deficit by the end of the year. In August, voters agreed to increase the rate from 2 percent to 2.5 percent beginning in October.

“This was our first income tax increase in 27 years,” said John Ivanic, communications director for the Columbus City Council. That increase, expected to generate $90 million to $115 million per year, also came with a promise from city leaders to search for inefficiencies and to make sure employee wage structures/health care costs were in line with similar cities.

Dayton’s income tax rate of 2.25, set in 1984, currently generates just more than $102 million a year.

Wages frozen  for a second year

“Our goal is to maintain our reserves and live within our means,” McLin said.

That goal may include employee wage freezes in 2010-2011, for the second consecutive year. The city can’t dictate the wage freezes and must negotiate them with the city’s bargaining units.

The Dayton Public Service Union, the city’s largest employee union, was the first to accept a wage freeze as part of its 2009/10 contract. That announcement was followed by City Manager Rashad Young’s decision to impose a similar wage freeze on all nonbargaining unit employees — executives, management and midmanagement staff.

In July, the International Association of Firefighters Local 136 became the second union to accept a wage freeze. The city, in exchange, agreed not to demote nine district fire chiefs or lay off any firefighters through May 2010.

The Building and Construction Trades Council also accepted a one-year no-raise deal.

The Dayton Fraternal Order of Police has not come to terms over the wage issue with the city for this year. Young expects a conciliation hearing to be scheduled with the police union next month.

Young leaves in early October to become city manager in Greensboro, N.C., but plans to return for that hearing or take part via video conference.

Other local cities making cuts

Other Miami Valley communities also are facing tough budget decisions.

Trotwood will lose 17 percent of its police force through layoffs and unfilled vacancies as part of actions approved by the City Council to close a $557,000 budget gap by Dec. 31.

City Manager Mike Lucking has said the cuts are painful but necessary in the current economic environment, and more cutbacks could become necessary once the city finalizes a budget for 2010.

Staff writer Ken McCall  contributed to this report.

Share this article