Potential Savings in City Operational Costs
In developing the general
fund budget for 2013 city council and administration appeared to be turning
over every rock to find ways to reduce spending while maintaining basic services
and avoiding a tax increase.
Looking over past year’s
budgets it was noted that the city was spending around $210,000 to collect $4
million in income taxes.
Research produced an
alternative method of collection that could trim $50,000 to $100,000 from the
collection costs.
A quasi government agency
known as the Regional Income Tax Agency (RITA) http://www.ritaohio.com/about/ provides tax collection services for many
Ohio municipalities.
A representative of the
agency was invited to make a presentation to Council’s finance committee. The
representative stated that RITA could perform the collection services for
around $104,000 or 2.6% of the total collected. The city is spending around
5.25% for the same service.
Some attendees at the
meeting had concerns about losing local input to the collection system. The
presenter offered that some municipalities kept a monitoring employee on the
payroll but that option would reduce the total savings available.
No further action was
taken by the city and we are again spending money that the city could be using
to provide adequate street maintenance or aid the financially strapped parks
and recreation budget.
No reason was given other
than the local control matter.
Sabina uses RITA and the
Mayor of the village (cell 937 218-6609) stated that they were quite pleased
with the service. Loveland, a demographic and economic mirror image of
Wilmington, also uses RITA and while missing some local input the savings realized
more than compensates for that problem. (513-707-1452)
RITA operates in
municipalities in the majority of Ohio counties. A local sampling includes
Milford, Waynesville, Fairborn and Yellow Springs. (See map) http://www.ritaohio.com/about/rita-map/
Paul Hunter
Contact at paulhunter45177@gmail
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