Mentor Officials React To Sales Tax Increase

The Lake County Commissioners voted Tuesday to increase the county's sales tax from 6.25 percent to 6.75 percent.

They also voted to reduce property taxes, as well as stormwater management fees. However, the latter reduction will not affect Mentor property owners because the city is not served by the county's stormwater program.

This comes after Mentor Council had unanimously passed a resolution, . City officials were concerned the sales tax increase would have a disproportionate affect on Mentor because 43 percent of the county's sales come from Mentor.

They asked the commissioners to delay their vote until council members could discuss the topic further with them.

However, the commissioners approved the tax increase anyhow and some Mentor Council members were perturbed by that decision.

"We're disappointed," Council President Scott Marn said. "Our goal was to find out how this would affect not just the city of Mentor's residents and businesses, but all of Lake County's."

Marn said he was receiving calls from Mentor businesses, concerned that the sales tax bump would make them less competitive.

Kevin Malecek, the CEO of the Mentor Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber members would have appreciated more time for discussing the issue, as well. However, the news wasn't totally negative for businesses, he noted

"There are positives in the plan because property taxes will be lower but that's counterbalanced by the sales tax increase," Malecek said.

Meanwhile, Lake County Commissioner Ray Sines (R - Perry Township) said the county's sales tax is still lower than 48 other counties in Ohio and he did not think shoppers would drive to Geauga or Ashtabula County to pay a 0.25 percent lower sales tax.

He added that the commissioners needed to approve the tax changes by today if they were to go into effect by April 1.

At-Large Councilman Ray Kirchner said the commissioners could have brought up the sales tax sooner, which would have allowed for more discussion.

"When there were mayor and city manager meetings in November and December, they didn't say anything," he said.

Tightening the belt

The sales tax increase is expected to generate between $13 million and $15 million for the county. However, the county's also expecting to lose about $5.5 million because of the reductions in stormwater fees and property taxes, Sines said.

Kirchner said he was disappointed that the commissioners never specified how they would use the funds from the increased sales tax.

Sines said the money would help shore up a county budget that's suffered from decreased investment earnings and property tax collections, the phasing out of the tangible personal property tax and cuts to the LGF.).

"Basically, all the revenue to the county has been gutted," Sines said.

Sines said the Lake County budget went from $62 million to $52 million in three years and they could not accommodate a drop that steep without cutting services.

Marn said that many governments, including Mentor, have had to deal with these same problems. He said Mentor made several tactical budget cuts to prepare for the recession that impacted the country in recent years.

In 2006, the city of Mentor had $50 million in revenue with $3.3 million of that unencumbered. By 2011, the city maintained the revenue level but made it so $13 million of that was unencumbered, Marn said.

"We saw where this was going in 2006 and started planning," Marn said. "Why didn't they?"

Sines replied that the commissioners also made difficult cuts before raising taxes, including cutting 22 percent of the county's staff over the last four years.

"We've been in this mode for eight years," Sines said.

Donor community

When Mentor City Council initially asked the commissioners to delay the vote, Ward 1 Councilman Robert Shiner said, "Mentor's been a donor community on a lot of things. We can't continue to give, give, give because it's costing our residents."

He echoed that sentiment Wednesday.

"The county seems to say, 'Mentor, you can take care of yourself and be a donor community,'" Shiner said. "We've received far less from the county than we've given."

Sines retorted that most county governments in Ohio take a bigger share of the LGF money allotted to their respective counties than Lake does. Lake takes 12 percent, as opposed to the average of 30 percent, Sines said.

The commissioner also said people needed to see the broader picture.

"I live in Lake County," Sines said. "I don't live in Mentor. I don't live in Perry (Township.) I live in Lake County."