The Press article on the referred to () Lt. Jeff Moore saying that the state took away the estate tax. FACT: The State did not eliminate the estate tax. The estate tax was eliminated by an overwhelming vote of Ohio voters in 2010. Message: voters are tired of over taxation!
Elimination of local government subsidies was necessary to balance the state budget and should not have come as a surprise to Council. It's not news that we have been in a tough economic environment for several years now. Like it or not, Gov Kasich's administration warned that these cuts were coming. If the State has to cut them, local governments must act responsibly and make the tough decisions on behalf of taxpayers to reduce spending and cut the size of government. City government has no entitlement to be exempt from the belt tightening that the state and taxpayers must accept.
I also want to strongly object to the use of threats of EMS staff reductions to scare Avon Lake residents, especially the elderly. I recall at a Council meeting, Mr. Meiners' comment that the people of Avon Lake would accept a EMS levy increase if it was presented in the right way. I assume he was referring to these threats of layoffs and scare tactics. The fact is that EMS finances are misrepresented. How many Avon Lake residents know that their health insurance claim payments, almost $400,000, for EMS ambulance service do not pay for EMS expenses but rather are allocated to the General Fund?
I urge you to drop the threats and scare tactics to goad citizens to pay more and more to subsidize budget deficits. It's time to put Avon Lake taxpayers ahead of the wishful aspirations of Avon Lake government. If you are so concerned about sustaining EMS services I believe it is your responsibility start using that almost $400,000 of EMS ambulance revenues to assure the continuance of the fine EMS services. Cancel the August vote and save taxpayers $30,000 for a more reasoned proposal in November.
Michael D. Hellyar
Avon Lake
So it seems that you must have been mis-informed about how the tax was repealed because no ohio voters sent any message. I did hear that the citizens united group brought 85000 ohioans signatures to the legislators to support repeal of the law, but that equates to 1.35 per cent of ohians. So i think this message is in your head so to speak. I wanted to supply links to support my comments so no one thinks i just make stuff up out of thin air. http://www.nodeathtax.org/ohio-senate-repeals-state-death-tax-
Check out this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfmWe_F9zk4&feature=youtube_gdata_player http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NadkNCUwDCI&feature=youtube_gdata_player Its not too hard to understand. The state balanced its budget on the backs of the local communities. Now is the time to decide if we want less service or more taxes. Kasich warned the cuts were coming.......and now they are here. Think of this as a tax shift. You pay less to ohio, and more to avon lake. At least on this tax decision you get a vote.
We have to scale back and live within our means and it does not mean that we will be less safe as lawmakers will claim. We just have to be smarter in how we allocate resources. And that was the point of my objection to the huge tax levy increase. It is meant to cover up excessive spending by the city.
Any suggestion that the choice is between less services or more taxes is unfounded. You need to study the city budgets as I have.