...the gap between expected and actual sales taxes continues to grow, something the county administration had been warning for years. In August, the administrator predicted not only a $14 million shortfall next year, but also a $94 million gap in 2014, a year after interest payments on the stadium bonds rise 44 percent. By then, the Reds will no longer be paying rent.
Last month, two of the three commissioners voted against cutting the property tax rebate, fearing a voter backlash. Raising the sales tax again was not proposed for the same reason.
“It can’t be 100 percent on the backs of taxpayers,” said Greg Hartmann, the lone Republican commissioner. “We gave away too much to keep the Bengals in Cincinnati. There has to be some middle ground.”
Hartmann and Portune want to introduce a tobacco tax, but lawmakers in Columbus, the state capital, may be unwilling to approve it.
So they have ordered more cuts in basic county administrative services, something that creates a slippery slope, said David Pepper, the commissioner who voted against the proposal.
“It’s like the movie where the blob keeps growing and eating away at other elements of county government,” Pepper said. “We’re beginning to cross a line in the sand by taking money from the general fund to pay for the stadiums. Once you put that money in jeopardy, you put the whole county at risk.”
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