Massillon Councilman Paul Manson is planning to ask his colleagues on city council to raise the city's income tax rate. Any increase in the city's 1.8% income tax rate has to be approved by city voters.
Manson is suggesting this issue be placed, by city council, on the November ballot.
"It's something that's absolutely necessary to discuss," he said (The Independent, June 22, 2011).
While we don't think the voters will approve Manson's tax plan, it is his first contribution to the discussion of the city's precarious financial condition in a very long time.
During the city's budget debate earlier this year, Manson, as city council finance chairman, added nothing to the discussion, except parroting the line that city council needed to approve the mayor's unbalanced budget exactly as submitted.
We are now left believing that Mayor Frank Cicchinelli wants the income tax rate increased, but in the buck stops some where else world of our soon to be departing mayor, he wants someone else to propose it.
Enter Paul Manson.
We assume Manson and the mayor can get city council to approve this plan.
They would need just five votes.
The rubber stamp block of Ron Mang, David McCune, and the Taxman, Dave Hersher, would surely support Manson's plan. They only need to pick up one more vote.
Usually Larry Slagle, or Donnie Peters is the swing vote on council.
They only need one.
Placing the tax increase on the ballot is only half the battle.
Getting the voters to support it is an entirely different matter.
The last time the city's income tax was increased by a vote of the people was 1995.
We voted to raise the income tax by .3%, with the money supposedly earmarked for parks and recreation, and a promise that our tax money would not be used to subsidize the city's golf course.
How did that work out?
