Fairborn’s current total city income tax rate is 2%.
Separately, each of the tax issues would cost $125 annually for someone earning $50,000 a year, Fairborn records show. Both tax levies expire at the end of 2024.
Both levies were first approved in 2004, Fairborn Acting City Manager Mike Gebhart said. They were renewed 10 years later by more than 63% of voters, Greene County Board of Election records show.
The ballot measures were each approved by city council last week, two days before the filing deadline.
The public safety levy “is crucial to the continued high-level operations and services” of police and fire departments, Fairborn City Solicitor Mike McNamee said in a memo.
Without it, “operations would be significantly hindered both in personnel and staffing as well as the quality of equipment and vehicles able to serve the public and ensure their safety,” he added.
The police department is authorized for 53 sworn officers, including command staff, but four positions are currently vacant, Gebhart said. The department responded to more than 107,000 calls in 2021-22 combined, according to city records.
The fire department has 49 firefighters/paramedics staffing four stations around the clock, Gebhart said. Nearly 14,000 calls were responded to in 2021-22, he added.
“Both of our public safety departments are very, very busy,” Gebhart said.
The street levy has been used to fund “multiple major projects” in the past decade, including Maple Avenue, Broad Street/Ohio 444 and Col. Glenn Highway pedestrian improvements, he said.
The cost of those three projects combined has been more than $14 million so far, with two of the final Broad Street phases planned in the next few years, according to the city.
Work on those projects has received more than $4.3 million in outside funding, Fairborn records show. More than $3 million more combined is expected in grants from the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission to finish Broad Street’s plan, according to the city.
In 2022, the city also identified 39 streets that needed “various forms of attention,” including asphalt milling and resurfacing, Gebhart said.
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