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COLUMBUS INCOME TAX ON AUGUST BALLOT? 
 
The Columbus Dispatch - March 26, 2009

Columbus officials are considering spending more than $500,000 for a special election in August to ask taxpayers for more money.

Although they could spare themselves much of the expense by waiting until November, a combination of policy and politics is driving discussion of an earlier, costlier vote on increasing the city's 2 percent income tax.

A win in August would give the cash-strapped city extra months of higher income that could forestall midyear budget cuts. Supporters also might face better odds in August, when fewer people cast ballots and get-out-the-vote efforts might have more impact.

But the city would have to pay as much as $1,000 per precinct -- and there are 521 in Columbus -- to have the Franklin County Board of Elections stage an Aug. 4 election. The cost in November would be about one-third of that amount.

City Auditor Hugh J. Dorrian said last month that he favored a November vote, but he said yesterday that he's open now to August. Income- and hotel-tax collections are down this year.

"You've got to weigh whatever additional expense you might incur versus the possibility -- the probability -- of additional spending cuts," Dorrian said. "We've got to get more money in here."

Dan Williamson, the spokesman for Mayor Michael B. Coleman, said "everything would be taken into account," including costs for an election, as city leaders weigh their options.

An economic-advisory panel appointed by Coleman and City Council President Michael C. Mentel recommended on March 5 that the city seek a tax increase of a quarter or half percentage point.

Coleman and others say they haven't decided whether to propose a tax increase, so talk of an election date is premature.

But some city residents have been called by pollsters this week trying to gauge support for raising the tax rate from 2 percent to 2.5 percent. The pollsters, who also are measuring support for Coleman, Dorrian and Mentel, refer to an August election in their questions.

Dorrian said neither the city nor his own re-election campaign is conducting the poll, but he would not say whether he knows who is. Coleman's campaign committee regularly commissions political polls, Williamson said, but he said he didn't know whether it is paying for this one.

Another potential sponsor is a political committee created last year to back six city bond issues that voters approved in November. It ended 2008 with more than $130,000 in the bank.

Columbus pollster Martin D. Saperstein, whose company is not involved in the current poll, said the questions appear designed to measure not just support for a potential tax increase but also how it would be presented to voters.

Saperstein said the questions about Coleman, Dorrian and Mentel might be included to determine the best pitchman for a tax-increase campaign.

Residents also have been asked whether they would support a 2.5 percent tax if city leaders promised to roll back the rate to 2.25 percent after two years; whether they'd trust officials to keep such a promise; and whether the possibility of police and fire layoffs, reduced trash pickup or more recreation cuts would make them more likely to vote for an increase.

 

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