The fire and police departments haven’t determined what exactly they will use the additional money for, but said they would like to hire additional personnel.
City Manager Rob Anderson said adding personnel is the goal, but because of the coronavirus pandemic, the city will also be evaluating what the revenues for public safety operations will look like for the rest of this year and the coming years.
“We are so grateful for our citizens in Fairborn for believing in our first responders,” Anderson said. “Especially at a time like this when they’re on the front lines of a crisis. We are really grateful that the citizens believe in that.”
The income tax will last 10 years and take effect on Jan. 1, 2021.
Fairborn’s income tax rate is currently 1.5%. The new income tax will be an additional half a percent, bringing Fairborn’s income tax rate to 2%.
Anderson said as the increase in the income tax gets closer, the city will begin notifying employers whose employees will be impacted by the tax, like those who work at Wright State University.
For someone making $50,000, that change will be an additional $20.83 per month. That adds up to an additional $250 every year for 10 years.
The income tax will generate about $4.8 million annually, Anderson said.
If the levy did not pass, Anderson said the city would have had to choose not to fill positions that are already open. Layoffs would have be likely eventually.
EARLIER REPORT: Fairborn focused on pandemic protection, not ballot issue, city leader says
Unofficial results from the Ohio Secretary of State’s office show 1.76 million ballots cast from Ohio’s 7.77 million registered voters in Tuesday’s all mail-in election. Nearly 200,000 absentee ballots are still outstanding and 44,368 voters cast provisional ballots, the state reported.
This is well below the 3.3 million ballots cast in the 2016 presidential primary and on par with the 1.97 million ballots cast in the 2012 presidential primary.
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