Recordpub.com - Changes to Kent tax credit considered Council to discuss at Thursday meeting

By Matt Fredmonsky

Record-Courier staff writer

Kent City Council will meet Thursday to consider changes to its approved 0.5 percent reduction in the city's income tax credit.

Council's finance committee will convene at 5:30 p.m. in council chambers at 325 S. DePeyster St. The committee will discuss potential amendments to the city ordinance passed Sept. 17 to reduce the tax credit granted to residents who work outside the city by 0.5 percent.

The meeting comes at the request of councilmen Jack Amrhein, Garret Ferrara and Wayne Wilson.

Wilson, who chairs the finance committee, said he requested the meeting for a number of reasons -- chief among them the struggling financial, credit and investment markets.

"We need to have some discussion because of the recent movement on the market, how bad the market and economy is doing at this point," Wilson said. "I think we need to re-discuss some things."

Wilson said he believes council should at least talk about pushing back the Jan. 1, 2009 implementation date for the tax credit reduction.

"I don't know what council's going to do," Wilson said. "These are just thoughts I have to discuss."

Council approved reducing the tax credit by 0.5 percent at its Sept. 17 regular meeting after three rounds of voting. At the same meeting, council approved placing an overall .25 percent income tax increase on the November 2009 ballot.

Ferrara, who is vice-chairman of the finance committee, called the tax credit discriminatory and said he has reservations about how fair such a tax would be if it only impacts a percentage of Kent residents.

"It appears that really we're not going to get as big a bang for the buck as we originally anticipated, and when you couple that with the sentiments of the population with regards to the tax it seems you're not getting a fair return for what you're getting out of the tax," Ferrara said.

Initially, Ferrara supported the tax credit reduction as a means to fund economic development initiatives because he does not believe a 0.25 percent overall income tax increase will gain voter approval.

"I thought, 'Here's a way we can earmark money for economic development' and remove the tax credit after we have the monies we needed," he said. "But, ... as I thought about it, it really isn't fair. You're upsetting 65 percent of the workforce that works outside the city. I guess at the end of the day the fairness issue really bothered me.

"We have gotten a lot of feedback from people, and people aren't happy with it," Ferrara said. "They're going to have to realize eventually services will be affected if we don't spend the money for economic development."