Cleveland City Hall in Cleveland

Cleveland city officials on Tuesday made the case for a proposed income tax increase.

(Plain Dealer file photo)

CLEVELAND, Ohio - Improved programs for senior citizens, a comprehensive violence prevention strategy and more housing inspections are just a few of the enhanced services that Cleveland officials say the city could afford if a proposed municipal income tax increase comes to pass.

Officials on Tuesday made their pitch to members of City Council, outlining each city department's "wish list" and making the case for just how far the extra $83.5 million annually could go.

Mayor Frank Jackson announced in February that he would seek a tax increase from 2 to 2.5 percent to plug a multi-million dollar shortfall in the city's budget next year, improve city services and pay for reforms to the city's police department. Council immediately introduced legislation to put the tax increase on the ballot, though it's unclear if voters would decide the issue in November or next May.

Council members have said they have mixed feelings about the increase, and some expressed those reservations Tuesday, at the first of two hearings scheduled on the proposal.

Here are some of the highlights from the hearing, which is set to continue at 1 p.m. Wednesday:

How did the city get to this point?

Jackson is calling for the tax hike, in part, to make up for $111 million in state cuts to local governments since 2011.

And Finance Director Sharon Dumas painted a grim picture of the city's financial outlook Tuesday.

State policy has ravaged local governments, redirecting money to a state surplus from the cities that need it most. Cleveland has lost $30 million a year in local government funding since before the recession took hold in 2008. And the city has lost millions more with the abolition of the tangible personal property tax, commercial activity tax and estate tax.

Budget projections for 2016 show the city barely breaking even, with a little more than $722,000 in the coffers by year's end. Services already are cut to the bone, vital city jobs have gone unfilled to save money, and ever-increasing expenses leave nothing to carry over toward an expected shortfall in 2017.

Among the new expenses this year in the city's $566.7 million budget are newly negotiated union wages and retroactive pay increases and healthcare coverage. Dumas, however, gave the unions credit Tuesday for agreeing to 10 unpaid days and "conservative bargaining that will allow the city to operate effectively without losing more employees."

The city also has been responsible for upfront costs of hosting the Republican National Convention later this month, and the daunting $11 million first-year expenses of the consent decree governing police use of force.

What's on the wish list?

Jackson has said he expects the income tax increase to improve services -- not just maintain the status quo.

Toward that end, Community Relations Director Blaine Griffin told members of council that he hopes for $263,000 of the new revenue to fund several positions - a grant writer, project coordinator, crisis intervention specialists and an outreach worker proficient in multiple languages - to work on the city's newly drafted comprehensive youth violence prevention strategy.

Director of Aging Jane Fumich said an additional $252,000 would greatly serve the city's 69,000 senior citizens - 22 percent of whom are living at or below the poverty line. Hiring a new administrative manager and program coordinator would improve the city's home repair, bed bug assistance and lawnmowing programs for seniors, and an additional social worker would ensure more people get the help they need to remain safely in their homes as they age, she said.

The department also would seek to hire a full-time grant writer. Currently, Fumich said, she and her staffers trade off grant writing responsibilities while tending to their other full-time work.

Building and Housing Director Ronald O'Leary said his department would request nearly $2 million to hire more personnel, including 13 residential building inspectors to focus on rental properties, with an eye toward identifying and remediating lead paint hazards.

When the special team of inspectors identifies peeling paint in rental units, they would automatically assume it contains lead, O'Leary said. The owner then would have to fix the problem and hire a private inspector to give the property a "lead maintenance certificate," stating that it is being maintained in a lead-safe manner, he said.

O'Leary said he would also hire more electrical safety inspectors, plumbing inspectors, elevator inspectors and a number of support staff, to perform the clerical and legal functions currently handled by the inspectors, themselves. The net effect: more predictable follow-up inspections on violations, speedier board-ups and an increase in cases filed in housing court for prosecution, he said.

But council members, who have long accused the understaffed Building and Housing Department of letting blight fester in the city, were skeptical.

Councilman Michael Polensek said the number one complaint of residents in his ward is building and housing code enforcement. He complained that the department's wish list doesn't suggest that additional residential inspectors will be added to the wards.

O'Leary said that beefing up the staff in general will allow the inspectors assigned to the wards to be more productive.

But Polensek said he wants guarantees.

"When you're riding through these wards, it's in your face," Polensek said. "The condition of the housing stock is disintegrating out there. And these slum landlords have destroyed our neighborhoods. ... I personally don't believe this is on the administration's radar screen - basic code enforcement. If it were, we wouldn't see what I see every day in this city."