On March 17 Toledo voters must decide on a ballot measure that would raise the city’s temporary income tax from 0.75 percent to 1.25 percent for 10 years. It will be on the primary ballot as Issue 1. The increase would be in addition to the city’s permanent income tax of 1.5 percent.
The Blade recommends an affirmative vote.
If voters approve Issue 1, the city will be able to spend an additional $40 million a year on reconstructing or resurfacing residential streets — bonding out about half of what the new tax raises. The need for street repair is urgent.
Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz is selling the “streets levy” with a detailed list of the 391 specific streets that will be resurfaced in the next two years, if voters approve the measure.
He also says that the city can afford to work on only 28 streets in the next two years if voters reject Issue 1.
The new tax will also will generate revenue for other projects — more money for police and fire, better parks and recreation, fighting blight, and providing universal prekindergarten for Toledo public schools. About half the funds raised will go to these needs. Pre-K will be roughly 11 percent, for example.
Though all of these causes are worthy, and arguably just as necessary as safe and usable streets, it was a mistake politically, and as a matter of public policy and administration, to blend them in with street repair.
To many voters, that even a dime from the “streets levy” will fund anything else smacks of sneakiness.
It would have been better to argue for and fund each project separately.
That said, the mayor responds that, along with increasing income taxes, Issue 1 — if it is approved — will permanently end the city’s worst budgeting bad habit, which is borrowing money from its capital investment fund to balance the operating budget.
Since voters allowed this irresponsible practice — commonly called “the transfer” — in 2009 Toledo has dipped into the capital fund all but two years.
The mayor may have miscalculated how much trust ending the transfer would buy his levy.
But he is absolutely correct about one thing: Toledo cannot doom itself to second-class-city status.
And continuing on with crumbling streets, a short-staffed police force, too many children starting kindergarten unprepared for school, and a parks budget that uses 80 percent of its money on grass cutting is a sure prescription for mediocrity and stasis.
The mayor is also absolutely right when he says that Toledo is at a critical crossroads right now, this year, this election. The city is beginning to see the benefits of a nascent renewal. Downtown is reinvigorated. New business is being generated. Young people are staying and moving back. To build on this modest momentum, Toledo has be bold, think big, and invest in itself.
The city’s voters should see Issue 1 as step one on a path to progress — to adequate roads and infrastructure, to a safer and more livable city, and to school children better prepared to learn.
The Blade recommends a vote of “yes” on Issue 1.
First Published March 10, 2020, 4:00 a.m.
