Commissioner wants to make temporary sales tax increase permanent - Other Community News - Ohioans for Responsible Rural Development

Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
Published January 25, 2012

By Jeff Barron

LANCASTER -- Fairfield County Commissioner Mike Kiger said now is the time to make a temporary sales tax increase enacted in 2010 permanent.

"I was one of the ones who voted to make it temporary before because I wanted to see how economic conditions would roll out," he said Tuesday. "We've had a $2.2 million cut in local government funds and we've faced other revenues that are going down. Without the increase in place, it's going to be about $3.7 million hit to the general revenue fund."

Effective Jan. 1, 2010, the commissioners instituted a .25 percent increase from 6.25 percent to 6.5 percent. Set to expire in 2014, the increase added 25 cents to every $100 spent. That generated an additional $630,000 in 2011.

Kiger said the county would have to do something drastic without making the sales tax increase permanent.

"I don't want to portend there is going to be a complete disaster," he said. "But we're talking personnel, we're talking services that we're not going to be able to do. And if that happens, I don't think that is in the best interest of Fairfield County."

Kiger said he is not talking about a new tax, but an extension of the existing one. He also said the county has a lower tax rate than other Ohio counties at 6.5 percent.

Read the full story on the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette website.