Speaker 1: Do you want to be an American? Good morning, Scott's
Speaker 1: sold with you here seven hundred W. Wellwy. And grinding
Speaker 1: it out.
Speaker 2: Along with your getting ready for midweek here already first
Speaker 2: week almost in the books, or at least halfway there.
Speaker 1: I'm being an optimist. I've been an optimist.
Speaker 2: This kind dropped yesterday during the swearing in of many
Speaker 2: city officials. In order to address a thirty two million
Speaker 2: dollar budget deficit in the coming fiscal year, Mayor after
Speaker 2: a Purevall, wants city Council to place an income tax,
Speaker 2: a payroll income tax, on the twenty twenty six ballot,
Speaker 2: meaning if you work in the city, you will get
Speaker 2: an extra tax.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: The money is going to go towards public safety and
Speaker 2: what he called disrupting poverty whatever that means, affordable housing,
Speaker 2: investment in the underserved neighborhood, support for minority owned business
Speaker 2: and like Jeff Kramerding is here, council member and of
Speaker 2: course chair Budget and Finance. Happy New year, Jeff, welcome back.
Speaker 2: Good to have you. Hope you had a good break.
Speaker 3: I did. Happy New Year. It's great to be back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 2: I think people will immediately hear new taxes and they blosh.
Speaker 2: The big picture is compared to peer cities, hell, compared
Speaker 2: to Ohio cities, Cincinnati is still pretty good. Now, I'll
Speaker 2: put a astros next to that, simply because we also
Speaker 2: have the county taxes we have. You know, pot property
Speaker 2: taxes are driving people crazy. Right now, we're paying museum taxes,
Speaker 2: school tech and let you add it all up, and
Speaker 2: it's a pretty good chunk of money. But the bird's
Speaker 2: eye view is that comparatively speaking among peer city, Cincinnati
Speaker 2: is still pretty good on this right.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, just from the city and perspective, we
Speaker 3: are very good. You know, all of our most of
Speaker 3: our revenue comes from the Arnis tax. We're at one
Speaker 3: point eight. All of our peer cities in IRA at
Speaker 3: two point five, So there's substantially bringing in a higher
Speaker 3: tax rates than we do in the city.
Speaker 2: Of same time, though, you look at how much people
Speaker 2: are going to pay more in property taxes and you
Speaker 2: just you feel the bite. You can look at the
Speaker 2: numbers and go, hey, that's great, but it seems like
Speaker 2: I'm paying way more than that I should be at
Speaker 2: this point, and I'm sure you're sensitive to that.
Speaker 3: I am I understand. I understand that, and in going
Speaker 3: to or door and talking to voters that that is
Speaker 3: a dynamic. But you have citizens that are frustrated by
Speaker 3: you know, by by litter and by other issues, and
Speaker 3: you say, well, we've got to keep our earn tacks
Speaker 3: artificially low. But the tacks are too high. So that
Speaker 3: puts us in a very difficult spot. But it is
Speaker 3: the reality, and I understand it well.
Speaker 2: And I think this is again the timing of this
Speaker 2: is kind of suspect too, or maybe not prime, and
Speaker 2: that is we just had the shooting of that eleven
Speaker 2: year old girl on New Year's Day at Laurel Park,
Speaker 2: and two and a half years ago we had another
Speaker 2: eleven year old boy that time murdered at the same park.
Speaker 2: And the idea in September was, hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: appropriate all this money five point four million towards public safety,
Speaker 2: which may add to this issue of the thirty two
Speaker 2: million dollar budget episodell get into a second, but the
Speaker 2: takeaway I think for residents is whole hold on just
Speaker 2: a second. We were spending this money. You gave you
Speaker 2: one hundred fifty million to put CAM one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand, rather put cameras in around this park, and
Speaker 2: we haven't done that, and no one knows why, and
Speaker 2: no one knows where the money is, and there are
Speaker 2: a lot of unanswered questions I had, and all beyond yesterday.
Speaker 2: She was confused by this. I'm sure you are as well.
Speaker 2: And so the optics of this, said Jeff Gramerding, are that, well, great,
Speaker 2: they're going to take more money in my paycheck. But
Speaker 2: are they actually responsible with the money that I'm giving them?
Speaker 1: Now, that's a fair question for yes.
Speaker 3: First, I mean, what happened to the children is just unbelievable,
Speaker 3: a terrible trategy that has to be addressed. It's important
Speaker 3: that this has been and this has been a long
Speaker 3: term conversation. It has to be. This conversation began with
Speaker 3: the Cincinnati Future Session when business and civic leaders came
Speaker 3: and looked at the city's budgets. The report, which was
Speaker 3: very thorough which people should look at as a since
Speaker 3: the Future Commission I came out in twenty twenty four
Speaker 3: and said that there is a very real need. The
Speaker 3: city's budget is not sustainable and they recommended two earnings
Speaker 3: access one point five to sustained the city's budget and
Speaker 3: one oh point one for housing economic development. So this
Speaker 3: work has been ongoing for two years plus, from my perspective,
Speaker 3: is dragged and it needs to be picked up and
Speaker 3: needs to be at a more deliberate pace. And this
Speaker 3: conversation is not directly related to what happened to the
Speaker 3: tragic incidents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it isn't, but I think of the minds of
Speaker 2: voters like, well, wait a minute, there's no accountability for
Speaker 2: the money that was already allocated for the cameras and
Speaker 2: now we've got literally have blood on hands, is a sense,
Speaker 2: because I don't know if it would have prevented the
Speaker 2: murder of this poor girl, this child. But it's certainly
Speaker 2: not good from an optics perspective that one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars supposed to go to cameras and no
Speaker 2: one knows who is responsible, why it's taking some there's
Speaker 2: just literally no answers. And then you come back saying, hey,
Speaker 2: by the way, we're gonna hit you with a payroll tax.
Speaker 2: It's not a good look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I understand that. And once again it's important to
Speaker 3: frame this in the big picture and what this money
Speaker 3: will go for. Keep in mind that the futures commissioning
Speaker 3: a very small earning stack, that's to still a hole,
Speaker 3: that's an existing gap in our budget. So I want
Speaker 3: to be very cautious. You know, if we're talking about
Speaker 3: a very small earning stack, we're talking about filling that
Speaker 3: whole continuing service as there is. There's certainly no money
Speaker 3: for increased police or increased fire or increase public safety.
Speaker 3: So I mean, we just need to be very careful
Speaker 3: what we're promising and frame this very important large to beate.
Speaker 2: Okay, so people hear this and go, all right, public safety, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we got to spend there. And disrupting poverty and neighborhood
Speaker 2: investment and affordable housing is big. But disrupting poverty and
Speaker 2: support for minority owned businesses and people and desertively, So
Speaker 2: look at it and go, what talk about accountability? Where's
Speaker 2: that money going? Is it more programs? Is it is
Speaker 2: it satisides? Is it just unaccounted for cash and we're
Speaker 2: gonna we're going to pay off some people basically disrupting poverty. Going, Okay,
Speaker 2: it's one of the root causes of violence. But I
Speaker 2: also think that that is demeaning in a sense, Jeff,
Speaker 2: because the idea is if you're poor, you're going to
Speaker 2: turn to criminal activity, and that's just simply not true. Yeah,
Speaker 2: a lot of the people who commit crimes are poor,
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of people who are below the
Speaker 2: poverty line are close to it, that are suffering, that
Speaker 2: don't resport to criminal activity. The idea that we have
Speaker 2: to pay people not to rob is I think that's insulting.
Speaker 3: I agree, and I think as far as we talked
Speaker 3: about part of your expects used to fill a whole
Speaker 3: and part of it will it would be looking back
Speaker 3: to since the Future Commission talking about economic development and housing,
Speaker 3: they proposed a point one for economic development housing. The
Speaker 3: largest bucket of money I was for housing economic development
Speaker 3: in neighborhoods like Christville and Bonto where the city Sycay
Speaker 3: does not have the resources to create the development that
Speaker 3: we want. So I think that I development like that,
Speaker 3: proactive positivelopment is critical is the foundation for of any
Speaker 3: crime and that's what that should be the core around
Speaker 3: any earning stack in any conversations throughound earning stack increase.
Speaker 2: Council Member Jeff Cramerting, a Chair Budget and Finance, talking
Speaker 2: about the proposed payroll tax that I have to have
Speaker 2: mentioned yesterday and you got about I think sixty days
Speaker 2: to come up with a plan for this whole thing.
Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong with the city. We operated
Speaker 2: without deficits through COVID and ore's federal money there too.
Speaker 2: But what specifically changed in the past year to create
Speaker 2: this thirty two million dollar hole. The rumor is it's
Speaker 2: police overtime, it's the crime issue.
Speaker 3: I would say that that that's not correct. Police overtime
Speaker 3: is a big factor. But you know, this is the
Speaker 3: city's budget being unbalanced is the reason I decided to
Speaker 3: run for council four years ago. This, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: going back, and this is in the Futures Commission. We've
Speaker 3: been operating on about a twenty five million dollar deficit
Speaker 3: a year and a year out and we always find
Speaker 3: a way to paper overage. And this is going back,
Speaker 3: you know ten years ago. Now the state government cut
Speaker 3: what is called the state and local government bucks the
Speaker 3: City of Cincinnati. It hurt other cities, That hurt all
Speaker 3: the townships and townships and cities had to make tough decisions.
Speaker 3: They had either had to raise taxes or they had
Speaker 3: to cut services. Painful, but they did here in the city,
Speaker 3: sin Sanni. I say, we did what we always do
Speaker 3: the city Sincanni. We put our head in the sand
Speaker 3: and hope the problem would go away. But it had.
Speaker 3: So this problem has continued to grow a year and
Speaker 3: every year. You mentioned the federal stimulus dollars. We had
Speaker 3: that money from Washington, which let us paper it over
Speaker 3: for a couple of years. After that. From a revenue perspective,
Speaker 3: the city has just said boom years the last couple
Speaker 3: of years, and that's let us payer over this deficits.
Speaker 3: But the problem remains. So we can either be proactive
Speaker 3: and address it now or wait till there's a recession,
Speaker 3: which will happen at some point and the city's be
Speaker 3: looking at very very real cuts and basic city services
Speaker 3: and possibly layoffs. So that's the reason I want to
Speaker 3: get proactive. Put a proposal in front of the voters,
Speaker 3: give them all the information, put our budget out there,
Speaker 3: which I understand nobody's aware of the realities right now.
Speaker 3: We need to make voters citizens aware of that and
Speaker 3: let them make a conscientious decisions.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So, Lyndon Baines Johnson declared the War on Poverty back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties. We saw how that worked out.
Speaker 2: Yesterday the mayor Aftered Puirreval said, this money, the thirty
Speaker 2: two million, good chunk of that is going to go
Speaker 2: to public safe but also disrupting poverty.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Can talk about what disrupting poverty means to him? From
Speaker 3: my perspective, any earning sect needs fous on housing economics,
Speaker 3: development in neighbors where there's not development occurring. To me,
Speaker 3: that will be critical to turning around his neighbors and
Speaker 3: reducing crime. That's where I'm going to be as this
Speaker 3: conversation develops, and that's where I would encourage others to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that just kind of scares me because that's just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: it feels good, but what does that mean disrupting We're
Speaker 2: trying to disrupt and pay people not to be poor
Speaker 2: for a long time. It's not working jobs in the initiative.
Speaker 2: Work seems to be a bigger issue, and certainly a
Speaker 2: sfordable housing fits into that as well. And I think
Speaker 2: people hear that and they're a little bit curious at
Speaker 2: the very least as to where their money is going
Speaker 2: to wind up going, because it doesn't hit you in
Speaker 2: the pocketbook. So if crime doesn't drop, or we don't
Speaker 2: crush poverty, which isn't going to happen in affordable housing
Speaker 2: has not as materializes, how are you going to measure
Speaker 2: that success? You know it, we'll put throw money at it.
Speaker 2: But it seems there's again back to the accountability issue.
Speaker 2: I think that that's critical here and that seems to
Speaker 2: be a thread throughout the conversations we have, whether it's
Speaker 2: poverty or crime is we'll take the money, will spend it,
Speaker 2: but there doesn't seem to be that much accountability.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work out, what happens, I.
Speaker 3: Think, well, first of all, I think people should look
Speaker 3: at the futures submission because I think that there is
Speaker 3: a lot in there, and I think that we'll tell
Speaker 3: people that this is a very solid foundation to begin
Speaker 3: this conversation. You know, there's some stuff in there that
Speaker 3: is probably gonna be a non starter. There's definitely there
Speaker 3: is recommendations for a trash acts. There was a recommendations
Speaker 3: to sell some golf courses and green spaces. We received
Speaker 3: a lot of negative and immediate feedback on those proposals,
Speaker 3: so we heard residents. But I think there is a
Speaker 3: lot and that people will like and will lead to
Speaker 3: positive change in the neighborhood. And that's me part of
Speaker 3: the conversation and how you structure it. When we did
Speaker 3: the railroad sale, we promised to put all that money
Speaker 3: into trust and lock boxes. That's been overwhelming successful. I
Speaker 3: think every degree that was a wise move. That money
Speaker 3: is still in a lock box protected by city ordinance
Speaker 3: and state ordans. So if you're talking about an earning
Speaker 3: sex economic development, how thing you could do it the
Speaker 3: same way. So, yes, how we do this is be
Speaker 3: very important. The accountabilities can be very important, and that's
Speaker 3: me part of the conversation. That has to be part
Speaker 3: of the conversation.
Speaker 2: Where's the line Je crame and doing this right and
Speaker 2: then driving people away. If you make seventy five grand,
Speaker 2: you're going to pay something like one hundred and ten
Speaker 2: extra a year, one hundred and fifties to twenty five.
Speaker 2: We're crunching some numbers in the newsroom and this is
Speaker 2: outline obviously, but someone like Hunter Green would pay an
Speaker 2: extra sixty seventy thousand dollars here because of this? Is
Speaker 2: there a concern you're going to drive out the desperately
Speaker 2: needed quote unquote rich people that we often, I wait,
Speaker 2: just tax the rich more. But what happens is we
Speaker 2: saw in New York and other areas they move out
Speaker 2: is Kentucky Mason and are they becoming more attractive to
Speaker 2: people who are hiringcome earners and what does that mean
Speaker 2: for this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's there's two points. First of all,
Speaker 3: the business community I believe in the city is very
Speaker 3: sensites that are for business leaders like Tim Spence. It's
Speaker 3: a third to come together and say, yes, this modest
Speaker 3: tax increase, this modest earning tax increase makes sense. I
Speaker 3: think that is a lot when business leaders say this
Speaker 3: makes sense, we need this development, we need some more money.
Speaker 3: So that was the first thing. I think having the
Speaker 3: business community involved at the outset without politicians is critically important.
Speaker 3: And secondly, I'll point out, as we discussed at the
Speaker 3: outset that our earning SAX is much lower than any
Speaker 3: of our city. So you know, using that logic, every
Speaker 3: everybody's choosing Cincinnati over Columbus and Cleveland. Even with these increases,
Speaker 3: this takes me much lower than those other cities. So
Speaker 3: we'll still be winning compared to our other peers.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, honesty, that's fair too, is that you know,
Speaker 2: business is moving out, and that's what the concern is.
Speaker 2: We've seen some high profile businesses move and it might
Speaker 2: be because of crime, but this just adds another reason
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: That's the scary part for you guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree with you, don't like to raise taxes.
Speaker 3: That's a factor. But I think, uh, having a safe,
Speaker 3: vibor liberal city is going to be more important for
Speaker 3: businesses and equally important for potential employees than a sect.
Speaker 3: But that's only part of the conversation looking forward. I
Speaker 3: don't want to west over that and say it's not
Speaker 3: a factor. It's definitely got to be part of the
Speaker 3: conversation as we've perceived for the next couple of months.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is the is the timing on this a little
Speaker 2: bit sus in the sense that hey, you just got
Speaker 2: re elected, things are great, and now we're going to
Speaker 2: hit you with this tax took literally days the same
Speaker 2: day that everyone is has been sworn in.
Speaker 1: They want to get this going within sixty days.
Speaker 3: So the report came out in the spring of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four. There was a conversation about going to about
Speaker 3: into twenty four two years ago, there is a conversation
Speaker 3: about going to about in twenty twenty five last year
Speaker 3: when we are on the ballot and there is never
Speaker 3: enough consensus to do that, which is fine, this has
Speaker 3: to be done right, but you know, raising taxes, talking
Speaker 3: about taxes is present. There's never going to be a
Speaker 3: perfect time. So at some point of the city we're
Speaker 3: going to have to decide to do this, be bold
Speaker 3: and aggressive and put something before the voters. You know
Speaker 3: as a politician that this is not going to be popular,
Speaker 3: This is not going to be this is not going
Speaker 3: to be a fun conversation. I realized that I knew
Speaker 3: what I was getting into, but it's one that the
Speaker 3: city has to have. So I am not wedded to
Speaker 3: going in the spring or the all. But you know,
Speaker 3: I will point out that this is now drug lunch
Speaker 3: for two years. I want to get it right. And
Speaker 3: if there's hard conversations going on, if people around the
Speaker 3: table really look at this, that's fine. But if we're
Speaker 3: just waiting for the sake of waiting, then I think
Speaker 3: that's unacceptable.
Speaker 2: One of the things the Futures Commission call FORER was
Speaker 2: a trash collection fee.
Speaker 1: It's never been done.
Speaker 2: Resalizing the water works that's going to require voter approval obviously,
Speaker 2: and those are difficult politically because it just feels like,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, here's another tax. One of those go
Speaker 2: on the belt because voters might might ask reasonably, why
Speaker 2: should we approve a tax increase, wanting to try other
Speaker 2: revenue options.
Speaker 1: The Future's Commission recommended.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's a lot of recommendations. As I said,
Speaker 3: I mean, I will not lie. The trash check received
Speaker 3: a lot of negative feedback. So you know, I've noted
Speaker 3: that waterworks. You know, that's very complex. It's going to
Speaker 3: take a lot of steps. That's not a tax, but
Speaker 3: some sort of regionalizing water works and so it's not
Speaker 3: solely under the city. You know, if that's complex, but
Speaker 3: there's no reason we should not start that conversation. These
Speaker 3: are again difficult conversations, but you know, we're here to
Speaker 3: have difficult conversations. So I think I know that before
Speaker 3: this conversation, people are going to want to know that
Speaker 3: many things are ongoing, including looking at water, including looking
Speaker 3: into the pension system, solvents. The Office of Strategic Growth
Speaker 3: definitely was a focused point of the Futures Commission that
Speaker 3: has not been done. I would expect there to be
Speaker 3: quick progress on that front before this thing get gets
Speaker 3: to memental because that's one a critical item that was
Speaker 3: in the Future Commission. There are other items in there
Speaker 3: that are equally important that we can have to have
Speaker 3: progress on to make this work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Future Commission did their report. You got
Speaker 2: sixty days to put something together per the mayor to
Speaker 2: get it to voters. Hopefully it becomes more clear because
Speaker 2: we honestly deserve to know what disrupting poverty means. And
Speaker 2: you know, neighborhood investment and support for businesses and that
Speaker 2: those are all vague and there's got to be more
Speaker 2: specifics to that whole thing. Otherwise it just feels like, hey,
Speaker 2: you're asking for money and there's going to be no accountability.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you can get that address.
Speaker 2: Jeff Cramerton share a Budget and Finance of the City
Speaker 2: of Cincinnati Council Member.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for the time. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Ah, it's great, great to be with you and your listeners.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks, We've got to get a news update in
Speaker 2: and I know it's coming at you in all directions.
Speaker 2: The big picture, of course is yeah, these city taxes
Speaker 2: are relatively low compared to other cities in Ohio and
Speaker 2: certainly peer cities, so there's room there, but no one
Speaker 2: wants to pay more taxes, and especially you know, with
Speaker 2: property taxes and the county digging into your pocket a
Speaker 2: little bit more. You know, you start talking about, now
Speaker 2: I gotta pay for trash, I gotta pay for this,
Speaker 2: that it all adds up, even though the technical it's not.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just another tax I don't care what
Speaker 2: they call it, but it just feels that way, and perception,
Speaker 2: of course, is reality.
Speaker 1: Saloney seven hundred WLW