County Mayor Jim Coppinger has signaled for weeks that he would use the city’s decision to let a sales tax agreement expire as an excuse to slash funding for a score of vital civic agencies and the county health department. Sure enough, that’s precisely where he falsely laid the blame – on the city – for over half of the $13.7 million in cuts, and 37 lost jobs, that he unveiled in his proposed budget for county government’s new fiscal year.
Blaming the loss of the sales tax agreement is a bogus argument. Coppinger’s proposed budget fudges the figures.
Follow the money. Until this year, the county had been allowed to distribute $10.5 million in city sales tax revenue to a core group of 10 necessary civic agencies. These included Erlanger (for a fraction of its indigent care), the public library, Chambliss Children’s Home, the Joe Johnson Mental Health Center and the Regional Planning Agency.
The city, however, will continue spending more than $6 million of that same money to subsidize several of these first-tier entities. It will fully fund the library and the RPA. That leaves the tier 1 group of supported agencies losing around $4 million from the city sales tax revenue, not the $10.5 million in funding that county officials keep saying.
In addition, the county was spending an additional $3 million over and above the $10.5 million in sales tax proceeds to help a second tier group of smaller public-services agencies. Now Coppinger proposes to zero out funding for the second tier, which covers around 20 smaller agencies. The disastrous result is a net loss of $7.2 million that had gone to supported civic groups – all of which should be funded by county government through its countywide property tax base.