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Petitioners seek lower Orange income tax
(by Sali McSherry - July 14, 2010)
Petitioners seek lower Orange income tax
By SALI McSHERRY
An initiative petition to decrease the municipal income tax in Orange, beginning in 2012, was filed last week with the village.
The petitioners, Jonathan Shanes, Frank Bona, Patricia Fernandes, Patrick Pannetti and Edward Salim, are seeking to decrease the current 2 percent income tax by 0.5 percent, which would make it a 1.5 percent tax.
"Before anybody blows a million-dollar hole in the operating budget, they should identify a million dollars in spending cuts," Mayor Kathy U. Mulcahy said. "The proposal is foolish, shortsighted and politically motivated -- just like its proponents."
The "people of Orange Village are overtaxed and seeking relief," Mr. Shanes said. He said the village is running a surplus and has too much money at hand to spend.
There is no way of reducing the village's budget by nearly 25 percent "without cutting into the substance of our operations and services," Ms. Mulcahy said. Municipal income taxes represent over 65 percent of the general fund, which is budgeted at about $4.9 million annually, she said.
With payroll comprising over two-thirds of the general-fund expenses, the reduction would result in layoffs of core personnel, she said, including police, fire and emergency medical services. Other services, such as street repairs, building maintenance, branch chipping and mulching would be cut and residents would be charged for rubbish collection, Ms. Mulcahy said.
Residents who work outside of the village receive a 60 percent credit, up to 1.5 percent withheld in the municipality where they work. Ms. Mulcahy said those residents are effectively paying only 1.1 percent to the village.
The city's 2 percent income tax has remained the same since October 1983, she said.
If petitions are circulated and signatures are valid, the issue could be on the November 2011 ballot.
"The idea that we can lower our income taxes without direct impact to the residents of this community would be false. There is no 'fat' in the budget now. We have made every detail of Orange Village's financial picture available to everyone. Our financial activity is completely transparent and has been presented to everyone via the Oct. 28, 2009, financial summit and the recent financial brochure that was sent out to everyone. In addition, the most recent monthly treasurer's and tax administrator's reports are posted on the Web site."
Ms. Mulcahy said, "Income-tax receipts are down already ... we keep reading about this every day, and even our more affluent neighboring communities have been adversely affected by this economic trend. Orange Village is no different. We are seeing dips in our income-tax collections too. And we haven't begun to see the effect of reduced property values in our receipts yet ... but, we are expecting to. We are currently undergoing many budget exercises to prepare for any possible scenario that may come our way."
Former village employee Kristin Dubyak, wife of former Mayor Joseph Dubyak, filed the petition with the village. She said she had been requested to file because of her experience with the procedure and process. She was one of the residents, along with several of the other petitioners who want to decrease the income tax, who petitioned to place the purchase of property adjacent to Village Hall on the ballot.
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