Speaker 1: Money, money, money, money, money, money, everybody wants more. Hamblin
Speaker 1: County may ask voters to increase the Children's Services levy.
Speaker 1: Last time we did this was about eight years ago.
Speaker 1: So the current funding is that we just don't have
Speaker 1: enough money for all the kids and this is not due.
Speaker 1: Butler County is just going to They just introduced I
Speaker 1: think a new two mil levee that they want to
Speaker 1: pass as well. It's all over the state as well,
Speaker 1: because that poverty gap continues to increase. There's just not
Speaker 1: enough money anymore to care for the kids. And this
Speaker 1: would fund the abuse neglect hotlines, foster care, family preservation, reunification,
Speaker 1: independent living programs. I'm involved, as you know, King of
Speaker 1: Mardi Gras coming up in Northern Kentucky Convention Center on
Speaker 1: Fat Tuesday. We raise money to feed kids for three
Speaker 1: agencies here in Cincinnati, and so it's a very real thing. Currently,
Speaker 1: the cost for this levee is eighty one bucks per hundred,
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars of home value. This one would
Speaker 1: increase at minimum eighty percent and eighty percent increase at minimum.
Speaker 1: On that's joining the show is our good friend. Hamlin
Speaker 1: County Commissioner Alisha Reese, welcome back.
Speaker 2: How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good, loan, Happy new.
Speaker 1: Year, Happy new Year. I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: happy new year yet. And I'm looking at these numbers.
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest with you, I'm like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: making me blush. You know, a minimum eighty percent increase,
Speaker 1: the optimal number would double that from sixty five million
Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty three million dollars. The ideal
Speaker 1: funding levels one hundred and twenty three. That's Alicia. You know,
Speaker 1: we've got you. You're out all the time. You talk about, Hey,
Speaker 1: you know the stadium thing, and you're not getting your
Speaker 1: money back from that, and then the property tax valuations,
Speaker 1: and I also I look at all these things that
Speaker 1: cost of livings going through the roof as well. It's
Speaker 1: never a good time to enter a levey. But boy,
Speaker 1: you're not. I'm looking at this going. This is a
Speaker 1: tough ask right.
Speaker 3: Now, Slane, It definitely is. I mean, it's the timing
Speaker 3: of doing something like this, and one of the things
Speaker 3: we've got to do. I wasn't on the commisis you know,
Speaker 3: eight years ago. But when I came on the commission,
Speaker 3: they said they had combined two levies and at that
Speaker 3: time we would have, you know, additional money. And in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four December had been asking about how much
Speaker 3: money do we have in the reserves and at that
Speaker 3: time is that they said one hundred million dollars in reserve.
Speaker 3: That's twenty twenty four December. Now you fast forward at
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five of December, it was well, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: now we have a thirty million dollars potential gap in
Speaker 3: order to make it and keep things going. And so
Speaker 3: I said, wait a minute. You know, I'm going to
Speaker 3: ask what the taxpayers are going to ask, how did
Speaker 3: you have one hundred million dollars in reserve? Now you're
Speaker 3: bankrupt almost and now just in time to have a lege.
Speaker 3: And so I've been asking those questions is people have
Speaker 3: asked me and the timing is just the horrible you know.
Speaker 3: Number one, the reason there is this Children's services levee
Speaker 3: because we have unfunded mandates by the state that we
Speaker 3: have to pay for this and it'll come out of
Speaker 3: the general fund and those kind of things. If we
Speaker 3: don't have the levees, I call it trickle down taxation
Speaker 3: from the state. They say we cut at the state,
Speaker 3: but then mandate at the local level to raise taxes.
Speaker 3: I am not convinced to move toward more money right now,
Speaker 3: yet I want to get all the information because I'm
Speaker 3: looking at the timing of this. Homeowners are getting their
Speaker 3: tax bill. It's an increase on property taxes at the
Speaker 3: same time, as you've indicated, the city is looking at
Speaker 3: if you live in the city of Cincinnati, they're looking
Speaker 3: at an income tax increase. So now your check is
Speaker 3: going to get shorter at the same time your gas
Speaker 3: and electric have gone up. Some people have tripled. Water
Speaker 3: bills was an increase at the same time, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people, some people have even lost their jobs,
Speaker 3: have been forced into retirement. Inflation is there. It can't
Speaker 3: go to the grocery store and buy anything, you know,
Speaker 3: because that's jumping out the roof. And so we've got
Speaker 3: to look at these things at timing and at the
Speaker 3: same time as government entities. We must look at everything,
Speaker 3: not in a silo, but in general. In other words,
Speaker 3: we can't look at the Bengals deal as a separate thing.
Speaker 3: And we got money, and we can make it work
Speaker 3: and we can get creative, which I voted against because
Speaker 3: it cut out the homeowners getting a break. Now on
Speaker 3: the other side, so we gave that deal away with
Speaker 3: no break to the homeowners of thirty percent. Now we
Speaker 3: come over here, and now you want to say what
Speaker 3: the homeowner's got to pay an increase because over here
Speaker 3: we don't have any money. And so I'm one that
Speaker 3: don't think, does not think that these are two cents
Speaker 3: the different money, because they all are you know, that
Speaker 3: comes from sales tax and those kind of things, and
Speaker 3: we have to we can't be over here saying no money.
Speaker 3: And then over here we're talking about arenas, We're talking
Speaker 3: about eight hundred million dollars, potentially, idea on the bank.
Speaker 3: We're talking all these things on here. But then when
Speaker 3: it at the end, you say, I want the tax payers,
Speaker 3: the homeowners who barely can make it, to pay for everything.
Speaker 3: And when we get to them, we're broken.
Speaker 2: But we need to develop that.
Speaker 1: I like Arena arenas is they bring money and we
Speaker 1: we you know, we need that outside money to come here,
Speaker 1: Convention center, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: That's good. That's how you increase the tax base and
Speaker 2: reduce the BRK.
Speaker 3: I agree, I agree that we want money to come in.
Speaker 3: But when we have the money that comes in. I'm
Speaker 3: looking where it's going. I mean, we're doing things and
Speaker 3: it's not going to help us. I'm for you know,
Speaker 3: I'm tourism former assistant director for the whole state and everything.
Speaker 3: Those dollars should be going in to reduce the cost
Speaker 3: on the whole home owners. Those dollars don't do that.
Speaker 3: Those dollars come in and now we're on another development
Speaker 3: and then they don't have to pay taxes. It's an abatement.
Speaker 3: It's a you know, free we're taxing everybody, but nothing.
Speaker 3: I'm looking at the pot. I'm thinking the same thing
Speaker 3: you're thinking. We bring all this money in, it's to
Speaker 3: go over here and now we'll help the homeowners and
Speaker 3: the local people. But it doesn't do that because we
Speaker 3: haven't put our foot down to make sure that it
Speaker 3: does that. There's these dollars, these oh we if we
Speaker 3: do this, this this Bengal deal, we could have got
Speaker 3: I think a better deal and gotten where the homeowners
Speaker 3: wouldn't have had to be written out of the deal.
Speaker 3: But we did it. So we've got to be more intentional.
Speaker 3: And that's my fight. My fight is we can't look
Speaker 3: at these projects. It's siloed because if I'm grandma with
Speaker 3: my house and I look and see in the newspaper
Speaker 3: that you got a you know, a three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty million dollar deal with to take for example, the
Speaker 3: Bengals deal. We wanted to have some state money so
Speaker 3: we can reduce our money so we can have the homeowners.
Speaker 3: Guess what, we didn't get that. Now they're saying we're
Speaker 3: going to go for state money. And I asked the administrator,
Speaker 3: if we get this state money, will that reduce the
Speaker 3: cost so now we can give the homeowners the big break.
Speaker 3: He said, no, we would have to do matching money.
Speaker 3: That's more money. So if we go to state, now
Speaker 3: there's more money. So there hasn't been enough intentionality saying
Speaker 3: every deal we must leverage in order to cut the
Speaker 3: cost on the local taxpayers. And that's what they're not seeing.
Speaker 3: They're not seeing that that is happening. And so unfortunately,
Speaker 3: well we're in this situation. But let me just say,
Speaker 3: in Adams County it went to the ballot. Children and
Speaker 3: these are people who normally vote for it. I mean,
Speaker 3: like you said, Adams County, they said they couldn't afford it.
Speaker 3: They voted it down Claremont County said they couldn't afford
Speaker 3: they voted it. So we're in a situation. Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: in a situation where people don't want to make that choice,
Speaker 3: but they're making choices between do I save my house?
Speaker 3: Do I be to buy my groceres my medicine because
Speaker 3: they keep putting taxes on top of them and the
Speaker 3: cost keeps going up.
Speaker 2: You're not selling this about the vote for it if
Speaker 2: this thing fails.
Speaker 3: What I'm not saying, well, well, one of the things
Speaker 3: that we're looking at plan A is I told them, mister,
Speaker 3: let's comb and be creative and see have we looked
Speaker 3: at everything to be creative, not do what we always
Speaker 3: been doing. Let's see what's what's available to what would
Speaker 3: be the level? You know, most of the time we've
Speaker 3: we've put things on, they've been flat. What would be
Speaker 3: the level? Uh. The other thing is going to the
Speaker 3: state seeing, you know, the governor, can you help because
Speaker 3: this has been a big thing and these are state mandates.
Speaker 3: So for me, I want to comb everything first, is
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. I'm not telling people not to vote.
Speaker 3: And then the other thing is out their options. Can
Speaker 3: you put options on the ballot. Can you put a
Speaker 3: B and C on a ballot? Or do you only
Speaker 3: have to do one number? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So people say, well, wait a minute. I want to
Speaker 3: support it, but I can't go to this level. But
Speaker 3: I can go to this level, why I wait till
Speaker 3: it get voted down and then come back with a
Speaker 3: smaller level. So I don't know what those are, but
Speaker 3: I said, these are difficult and different times, so we
Speaker 3: have to think differently. So we definitely got to support
Speaker 3: our children. I've certainly have been about that youth employment
Speaker 3: and falster care and those kind of things, but I
Speaker 3: also think that we've got to come up with some
Speaker 3: other solutions because when's happening with the foster care, the
Speaker 3: providers are are charging us out the roofs now and
Speaker 3: they're not even doing RFPs with us. They just sit
Speaker 3: back and say, you know you're desperate, you're gonna come
Speaker 3: to us, and now we're gonna price gal And so
Speaker 3: what are we gonna do about the price gouge? Because
Speaker 3: it's not if we can't stop, the bleeding is going
Speaker 3: to continue to go up up enough. So I'm looking
Speaker 3: for us to put all our thinking caps on and
Speaker 3: look at the what is the best way, But take
Speaker 3: everything into consideration is what I'm saying, Everything into consideration
Speaker 3: and put it together and let's see where we go
Speaker 3: from there. But that's you know, we're in a tough
Speaker 3: spot right now. But we've got to think it through
Speaker 3: because I would hate for it. You know what happened
Speaker 3: in Adams County, what happened in Claremont County. But if
Speaker 3: for us that you go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 3: So my thing is, let's don't go back to the
Speaker 3: drawing board. Let's go to the drawing board now and
Speaker 3: try to see if we could come with something that
Speaker 3: would be a more balance.
Speaker 1: Alicia Reese, we've seen this happen before in the county,
Speaker 1: but also Wells, the Sydney, pretty much everywhere. All right,
Speaker 1: you weren't around, you were in an office in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen when this was last passed. Why did the county
Speaker 1: wait until the costs became so unsustainable rather than pursuing smaller,
Speaker 1: more frequent increases.
Speaker 2: And you know, if we.
Speaker 1: Are we just going to do this every year and
Speaker 1: now are we going to come back another ten years
Speaker 1: and go, oh, we need to triple it now?
Speaker 2: I mean, why not put this on the ballot sooner?
Speaker 3: You know, this is a very good question. I mean
Speaker 3: those are questions that that I would I have, and
Speaker 3: that we have to look at. You But I think
Speaker 3: people didn't want to have to vote on levees every
Speaker 3: single year. We have other levees as well. We've got
Speaker 3: the uh, you know, we've got the hospital levee, right,
Speaker 3: We've got a number of other levees, and I don't
Speaker 3: I don't think you know, you want to be on
Speaker 3: the ballot every year with a levee. Uh. But but
Speaker 3: I also think that we've got to look at this
Speaker 3: rising cost of price gouging, if you will, of those
Speaker 3: uh facilities where we have to you know, place the
Speaker 3: children in those facilities. But we've got to do something
Speaker 3: about this price gouging. And that's why I think the
Speaker 3: governor and uh, you know, possibly you know, the governor
Speaker 3: Attorney general to all get in place, because this is
Speaker 3: not just the Hamilton County problem. This is around the
Speaker 3: whole state of Ohio. And if we keep going in
Speaker 3: this way, we're you know, supplying demand, right, it's gonna
Speaker 3: really it's going to you know, bankrupt the taxpayers and
Speaker 3: so That's why I want us to not just hey,
Speaker 3: we're putting a levee on, let's talk about how like
Speaker 3: you said, let's get some new ways, some new ideas,
Speaker 3: let's get some help from the state. Uh. So when
Speaker 3: we do have something, we can tell the taxpayers that, hey,
Speaker 3: this is not something that's gonna just keep going.
Speaker 2: Okay, God, yeah, you know it's a it's a tough ask.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think most of us
Speaker 1: are pretty empathetic towards us because we have kids, young,
Speaker 1: young kids who you know, you're born in this world.
Speaker 1: You don't get to choose who your parents are, your
Speaker 1: economic situation, we have no say in that. And they
Speaker 1: are entering care with more intensive mental health problems, more
Speaker 1: behavioral issues, more developmental needs. Uh. The cases from the
Speaker 1: case workers I talked to are getting more severe. There's
Speaker 1: an increase in total case load. Uh. And so the
Speaker 1: whole system, it's not just one air. It seems like
Speaker 1: the whole system is strained, and we got to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to fund that.
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely agree with you. I mean, these are
Speaker 3: innocent children who you know is not on them, And
Speaker 3: that's why I don't want to have a put the
Speaker 3: taxpayers in a position because we've had people that have
Speaker 3: been supportive. I mean, we've supported this. I feel like
Speaker 3: our county has been you know, we've always been one
Speaker 3: to step up. We want children to have a fair chance.
Speaker 3: Children are not born in equal circumstances, but we don't
Speaker 3: want to put the homeowner in that position. And that's
Speaker 3: what I'm trying to do because I'm hearing from people
Speaker 3: that they have normally support this and everything else, but
Speaker 3: I can't survive, and so we've got to have some
Speaker 3: kind of a balance so that the people who are
Speaker 3: allies don't become adversaries. And that's what I think. We
Speaker 3: got to show that we've looked at everything. We're trying
Speaker 3: something different where we we we've we've talked to it.
Speaker 3: We've got try to get the state involved where we're
Speaker 3: dealing with this price gouging of some of the placement
Speaker 3: areas that have you know, went up on not everybody,
Speaker 3: but there's some that have went skyrocketed. And that's how
Speaker 3: we went from one hundred million dollars in one year
Speaker 3: of one hundred million dollars that we had in reserve
Speaker 3: in one year. So now you know we're rope in
Speaker 3: terms of that. So we we've got to do something
Speaker 3: about that problem as well. And then I don't think
Speaker 3: it's just solved with just Jeff's the levee. We've got
Speaker 3: to now come with you know, here are some new
Speaker 3: parameters or some new things, like you said, So it
Speaker 3: just does a balloon out of control.
Speaker 2: How do you stay ahead of inflation?
Speaker 1: And that's the thing is, you know, we'll pay for this,
Speaker 1: but in short term, you know that's the budget's going
Speaker 1: to shrink anyway because of our inflation out stable zing
Speaker 1: some degree. But seems like the cost of everything is
Speaker 1: going on. Is that all the reason for the big
Speaker 1: ask here?
Speaker 3: Well, inflation is. But my understanding is that some of
Speaker 3: the providers and the care that we need, they around
Speaker 3: the state. This is a problem around the state. They
Speaker 3: skyrocketed their prices, you know what I'm saying, And we
Speaker 3: didn't have a choice, so either you take it or
Speaker 3: leave it. And those were the things that I understand.
Speaker 3: The consultants he had as a consultant. I don't know
Speaker 3: if he or shed the consultants had factored in some inflation.
Speaker 3: You know, you always cost the living, but they hadn't
Speaker 3: factored in that these providers that would not participate in
Speaker 3: the RFP process but would sit back and say they
Speaker 3: got to come to us. And then when the county
Speaker 3: came to them, they said, this is the price, take
Speaker 3: it or leave it. They didn't factory was going to
Speaker 3: be that high. So I think inflation is something that
Speaker 3: I mean, of course you can't say how high and
Speaker 3: place it's going to be, but it's it is factored in.
Speaker 3: We've got to kill our c group and they do
Speaker 3: factor in some inflationary costs. But what wasn't factored in
Speaker 3: is I mean, these costs were astronomical and it was
Speaker 3: no choice because we are mandated to place the children
Speaker 3: in the care and they might be the only game
Speaker 3: in town you got me or around and it's not
Speaker 3: just in town, and they're seeing that across the whole state.
Speaker 3: And so that's why I think it's important that the
Speaker 3: governor intervened and maybe Attorney General to see is their
Speaker 3: price gouging going on at the expense of helping our children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, if only we could have got more
Speaker 1: than the twenty five percent with the e Bengal Stadium
Speaker 1: deal from the team, right, we.
Speaker 3: Got four percent only and if we could have gotten that,
Speaker 3: maybe the thirty percent could have helped. My point, every
Speaker 3: bit help and every deal we look at. We've got
Speaker 3: to try to leverage every single deal because from a
Speaker 3: messaging standpoint, people are out there saying, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: you just did this over here and you couldn't give
Speaker 3: me a homeowner a break. And now over here you're
Speaker 3: gonna raise it over here, and then over here you're
Speaker 3: coming after my check with income tax minute now, yeah,
Speaker 3: because that's Seth.
Speaker 1: That's Seth walshown at nine this morning talking about the
Speaker 1: city income tax increase as well. And you live in
Speaker 1: Hamlin County. If you live in the city, ELSEO live
Speaker 1: in Hamlin County. So here it's coming at you with
Speaker 1: both barrels. She is Alicia Reese on the show on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WW Hamlin County Commissioner. Next step is going
Speaker 1: to be figuring out whether this goes on the spring
Speaker 1: of the fall ballot. We'll pick up that conversation then
Speaker 1: you'd be well, thanks for jumping on this morning.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I appreciate it. And again, like I said,
Speaker 3: this is something that we need to we need the governor,
Speaker 3: we need to turn to general. We've got to deal
Speaker 3: with the price gouging on the backs of our children
Speaker 3: and then creating this cost burden that comes all the
Speaker 3: way down to people who have been allies for children services,
Speaker 3: and now you're forcing them to make a choice between
Speaker 3: food on their table or helping our children. That's insane,
Speaker 3: and so I hope that we can get something worked
Speaker 3: out to help us with this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fingers crossed. Be well, we'll talk again soon. Appreciate you,
Speaker 1: all right, thank you? All right, we'll get a news
Speaker 1: update and how about that. And then just ahead, it's
Speaker 1: Julie on the job. Julie Balki jumps in to talk
Speaker 1: about I wonder what we're talking. Oh, we're talking about
Speaker 1: the the autoworker flipped off Trump, or Trump flipped off
Speaker 1: rather and because he said some unsavory things at the president.
Speaker 1: We'll get that next here seven hundred w all the