By CARL E. FEATHER - Staff Writer - cfeather@starbeacon.com
Ashtabula County commissioners Daniel Claypool and Joseph Moroski verified on Friday that the resolution to place an increase in the county’s portion of the sales tax on the May ballot has run into more problems as a result of errors made in the resolution by the Ashtabula County Prosecutor’s Office.
Mike McKinney, a spokesman with the Ohio Department of Taxation, said Friday morning the amended resolution, passed by a 2-1 vote on Jan. 22, was reviewed by the department. He said:
“There were some issues with the resolution as to how it was worded. It did not meet all the government statutes. The way the resolution was worded, it did not meet the requirements of (Ohio Revised Code) 5739.026.”
McKinney said one of the issues appears to have been the commissioners’ attempt to implement the sales tax increase April 1, prior to the May 4 election. The law does not allow this action unless the commissioners vote unanimously 3-0.
On Tuesday, the commissioners met in an executive session with Prosecutor’s Office staff to discuss “pending litigation.” When the commissioners board convened after the session, it voted to amend the resolution to remove Section 4, said Claypool.
That section reads:
“The Clerk of the Board is hereby directed to deliver a certified copy of this Resolution by certified mail to the Tax Commissioner of the State of Ohio at least sixty-five … days (Jan. 26, 2010) prior to the date on which the tax is to become effective, which shall be the first day of a calendar quarter (April 1, 2010).”
When asked about the “pending litigation” that prompted the closed-door session with lawyers, Claypool said: “I don’t
know. We could get sued on this. The Board of Elections (is) in the middle of this thing.”
A referendum committee, which was organized in response to the threat of an April 1 implementation of the tax increase, filed a request last week for the Board of Elections to hear a complaint regarding the commissioners’ ballot request. However, it was not a court-related action.
Ashtabula County Commissioner Joseph Moroski was undergoing medical treatment Friday. In an e-mail he stated:
“When we received the e-mail from the Prosecutor’s Office on 1/28/10, and subsequently met with two of his staff, it became clear that it (the April collection) was off the table. There was still no discussion of amending the resolution and removing the April date until after this (Tuesday’s) meeting. … This was no clerical error, and it is interesting to watch people attempt to rewrite the nature of the events to match their current version of what happened.”
Even with removing the April 1 language, the resolution is still outside the law. Claypool confirmed Friday afternoon that there is an issue with the section of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) that is quoted in the resolution and the Prosecutor’s Office is scrambling to correct it.
A Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman told the Star Beacon only County Prosecutor Thomas Sartini can speak to the matter and that he will be out of the office until the end of the month. Claypool said he does not know where the prosecutor is but “he is in contact with his staff.” One source said Sartini is in Mexico.
“I’m working with his staff,” Claypool said. “There is a defect in (the resolution), a legal defect that we will correct.”
Claypool said the process of raising the sales tax, whether by vote of the people or commissioners, is very complex and cumbersome, thus the errors. He said the defect will be addressed in an open session of the commissioners board next week.
“Nobody is going to do anything behind the scenes,” he said.
As for getting the one-half-percent increase on the May 4 ballot, commissioners have until Feb. 18 to file with the Board of Elections a resolution that will pass muster with the state.
“Nothing is going to happen. There is no sales-tax issue at this point,” McKinney said Friday morning. However, he said the department will do all it can to expedite a review of the resolution by the deadline. He also pointed out that the process for raising the tax by a ballot issue is different from an emergency resolution. Commission-ers first file with the board of elections, which then sends the resolution to the Ohio Department of Taxation for review.
Moroski said Friday afternoon that in his discussions with the Department of Taxation on Friday morning, he asked whether commissioners would be within the bounds of the ORC if they once again amended the resolution without going through another public-hearing process.
“Nobody could answer that question for me,” Moroski said.
“I’m very concerned,” Claypool said of the issue’s fate. “That’s why we are working with legal staff.”
