State Takeover: Fairlawn Officials Oppose Centralized Tax Collection

Gov. John Kasich's administration is looking to centralize all municipal income tax collections to Columbus, which would be devastating to cities such as Fairlawn, said Mayor William Roth.

At Monday's City Council meeting, members approved a resolution opposing the idea of a centralized tax collection saying Ohio has to find a better way to deal with its budget problems.

Under a centralized system, the state would take over local income tax collections and it would take longer for that money to make its way back to the municipality.

The Plain Dealer reported that Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor has said centralization would be a "a great step forward in helping ease the burden" on businesses that are in several jurisdictions or have multiple returns in different municipalities.

"There are numerous cities passing a similar ordinance opposing this tax collection," Roth said. "I understand the state of Ohio has some serious budget issues and they're fixing them how they see fit, but this is devastating to cities."

Roth explained that this, along with all the other cuts the state has made, takes away more money from Fairlawn's revenue stream.

"The local shares (from the state) are disappearing," Roth said. "We have traditional revenue streams, but we're losing them. We need to maintain cash flow."

Roth and Assistant Finance Director Patricia Bertsch also worry about Fairlawn's level of service going down if centralized tax were implemented. If a resident or business owner needs help with taxes right now, someone from the city will sit down with them to help, rather than shuffling them off to Columbus experts who don't know the ins and outs of a specifici city's operation.

"Cities that collect their own taxes are experts on what their (city) code is," Bertsch said. "We just don't think the state can do it better or more efficiently than we can."