August 31, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

At the Aug. 21 meeting of Village Council, Council members and villagers engaged in a sometimes passionate discussion regarding the merits of a property tax levy which Council voted on Aug. 7 to put on the November ballot.

At last week’s meeting, Council unanimously passed a resolution to officially submit to the Greene County Board of Elections the ballot language for the levy. The levy will read “An additional tax of 8.4 mills for the benefit of the Village of Yellow Springs for the purpose of current expenses at a rate not exceeding 8.4 mills for each one hundred dollars of valuation, for a period of five years, commencing in 2006, first due in calendar year 2007.”

At the meeting, villager Jaime Adoff asked why other Council members had not responded to the counter proposal made by Judith Hempfling at the Aug. 6 meeting for a lesser tax hike that would have halved the amount raised for new road maintenance, from $435,000 per year in additional spending to about $200,000.

“You cannot calculate what the human cost will be,” of the $8.4 mill levy, Adoff said. “There are many families who are struggling now who will probably be driven out of town. We will catch up on the streets at what cost?”

An 8.4 mill levy on property tax will cost property owners an additional $8.40 for each $1,000 of property valuation. A homeowner would pay an additional $253, before exemptions and tax deductions, for each $100,000 of fair market value of the home.

Village Manager Eric Swansen has said that the almost $1 million raised by the property tax hike would be divided almost equally between funding state-mandated services, such as road maintenance, and non-mandated human services, such as maintaining the Gaunt Park pool. The road maintenance program proposed by Swansen would double the amount currently spent on roads, which is about $400,000.

In response to Adoff, Hempfling said she made the lower levy proposal because she believes Council needs to maintain a balance in addressing infrastructure and human needs in the village while not putting too much of a financial hardship on villagers.

“I was suggesting we not go as high on the levy because I’m concerned about the issue of affordability,” she said.

In response, Council President Jocelyn Hardman said she did not support Hempfling’s proposal because she believes that improved road maintenance is a critical issue, and that budget constraints have forced the Village in recent years to cut down on maintenance so that the roads are falling into disrepair and will become much more expensive to fix if maintenance is put off once again.

If Council chooses to halve the amount for new road maintenance, “what we’re doing is what has been done to us,” she said, referring to decisions the Village has made in the past to defer road maintenance for other needs. Because of that deferring, local streets actually need about $3.5 million in street repairs, Hardman said, and the $435,000 for new road maintenance measures is actually a small part of the total need.

“I’d rather not make poor financial decisions anymore,” she said.

Affordability can mean many things, according to villager Sue Abendroth, who said that Council’s choosing cost-effective ways to maintain Village infrastructure is one aspect of affordability.

Other villagers who attended the meeting, several in support of a request that Council extend the Gaunt Park pool season, requested clarification regarding state-mandated services that the Village must provide. While it’s clear that the Village must provide roads, Rubin Battino said, it’s not clear if the state also mandates the level of road maintenance required.

“Does the state mandate that roads be maintained at a Cadillac level or at a Volkswagen level? How tight is the mandate?” he asked.

There are no official state inspections to determine if roads are being maintained adequately, according to Swansen, who said that a pavement maintenance curve determines how quickly roads will deterioriate if not adequately maintained.

“Council needs to make a decision about what is the wisest use of funds in the long term,” he said.

Villager Helen Eier said that she also supports Hempfling’s proposal for a lower levy and reduced street maintence, and that she is troubled by what seems a growing division in town between those who support the levy and those who do not. Villagers do not seem to be listening to each other, she said.

“We’re not communicating because we’re not talking about the same things,” she said.

Over the past several months, Swansen presented to Council information on Village capital needs and on services mandated by the state, and on ways that the Village is allowed to raise revenue to pay for those needs. The current Village budget has a deficit of about $1 million, which is being paid by Village reserve savings that will run out next year, Swansen has said. He has also stated that the loss of 185 jobs at Vernay Laboratory and the aging of the local population are likely linked to the budget deficit, since the Village has relied on income taxes on earned income for its main revenue source.

In other Council business
• Hardman said that more people are needed for the Levy Campaign Committee, which will be charged with educating villagers about the levy and budget needs. Only two people came to an initial organizing meeting for the committee, she said.

• Council discussed whether to maintain the current order of its meeting agenda. At Hempfling’s request, Council members are considering moving the Citizens’ Concerns agenda item closer to the beginning of the meeting. Currently, that agenda item takes place after legislative business, and Hempfling has said that making villagers sit through legislative business before Citizens Concerns makes them less likely to attend meetings to express their opinions.

Council Clerk Deborah Benning stated that Council is legally required to advertise the exact time when public hearings are held so that interested persons can comment on the hearings, and that moving Citizens’ Concerns to the beginning of the meeting could result in Council veering off schedule. Hardman stated that she already seeks public comment on all legislative business as each item comes up in the agenda, so that the Citizens’ Concerns agenda item pertains only to issues not on the agenda.

Council will make a decision on the agenda at its next meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 5.

• Swansen thanked villager Suzanne Clauser for her donation to the Village of $3,000 for repairs to the wastewater treatment plant. The donation allowed the Village to fix a longstanding problem, he said.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com