“That’s the thing about property taxes,” City Manager Rob Anderson during the council meeting at which the ballot measure was discussed on July 6. “As you get more people involved, the effective rate goes down.”
The renewal is a separate tax from the 2020 income tax Fairborn voters approved last March to maintain police and fire operations, which generates a combined $4.4 million for those two funds. That tax took effect on Jan. 1, and will remain in in place for the next 10 years.
Anderson said the property tax renewal was built into the projects Fairborn had when they put the income tax on the ballot.
“If the question comes up as, ‘well, we just gave you this income tax, why are we doing this now?,’ because the amount of money that it takes to fund both police and fire is significant enough that we need both sources of revenue,” Anderson said.
In general, police and fire tend to take up the largest portion of any city’s budget. According to Fairborn’s budget, the fire department is projected to spend about $7.6 million in 2021, while the police department is expected to spend about $8.3 million.
Police and fire still would get money from the general fund, Anderson noted, as the two levies do not cover all the costs of police and fire.
Fairborn projects its 2021 operating budget to be about $54 million, which means police and fire will account for 29% of projected expenditures.
City council said they were in favor of the proposal during the presentation, with many noting that they knew this would be coming when the last levy was passed.
“No new taxes, they need the money and I totally support it,” said council member Tana Stanton.
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