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CINCINNATI — Hamilton County homeowners will get a break on their property taxes next year, but it won’t be the full 30% rebate they may have wanted.
The Hamilton County Commissioners voted for a 10.5% property tax rollback Thursday afternoon, which is roughly $32 for every $100,000 in home value.
The money is less than what voters were promised after approving the half-penny riverfront sales tax in 1996. That sales tax helped fund new stadiums for the Bengals and the Reds. According to County Administrator Jeff Alutto, in the years following its passage, the county was able to meet the 30% rebate.
That changed following the recession. The county has offered a 30% rebate only three times in the last decade — 2012, 2017 and 2022. In 2021, the rebate was just 6%, due to the pandemic. That’s a total of $5 million of the roughly $85 million the county typically collects in sales tax.
Commissioner Alicia Reece said she wanted to give homeowners the full 30% rollback next year, but she didn’t have the votes.
“People’s medicine has gone up, food has gone up and I think this is an opportunity to keep the promise to the taxpayers,” she said.
Talk of a recession leading to a decrease in sales tax revenue influenced the vote.
“We don’t know what the future holds and so I think the reasonable PTR is the 10.5,” Commissioner Denise Driehaus said.
Just minutes after this vote, the Metropolitan Sewer District gave its budget request presentation. In the presentation, they outlined the age of sewer infrastructure, with 460 miles at extreme or high risk of failure.
“We’ve heard about the disasters — the more recent one in Jackson, Mississippi. Everybody’s familiar with Flint, Michigan. Those crises aren’t that far off from things that are a risk to MSD,” Diana Christy, the Director of MSD, said.
They’re asking for a budget increase, from about $231 Million in 2022 to about $235 Million in 2023. This kind of increase generally leads to a rate increase.
The Hamilton County Commissioners are still going through the budget setting process so no rate increases were decided Thursday. We can expect these decisions in the coming weeks.
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