Don Mooney

Opinion contributor

What did Cincinnatians learn from City Hall’s "Textgate" kerfuffle?

In their (assumed to be) private communications, seemingly mild-mannered "public servants" can be petty, mean, crude and jealous, not unlike many non-politicians; and

Despite the lessons of Watergate, and several Clinton-era scandals, it’s still "the cover-up," not the "crime," that gets you in hot water. What would have happened if the "gang of five" had quickly confessed their error and immediately released their errant texts then and there? Judge Robert Ruehlmann would have missed his latest star turn.

In that spirit of a prompt confession, I’m acknowledging a major miscalculation of my own on an issue that’s costing taxpayers a whole lot more than "Textgate."

Last year, in my work for the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, I poured over public records to get a handle on how many tax abatements City Hall has bestowed on local developers and homeowners. My eyes blurred and brain addled as I poured over semi-decipherable spread sheets emailed from City Hall. I added, subtracted and searched the Hamilton County Auditor’s website. I came up with the following:

About 300 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) projects, commercial or multifamily, totaling about $700 million in abated value (the amount of property value exempt from taxation).

Another 1,600 abated residential units – home or condos – totaling about $170 million in exempted value.

Dozens of harder to pin down Port Authority and Tax Increment Financing (TIF). I estimated those were worth about $250 Million.

I rounded up, estimating that the total value of tax exemptions passed out to private property owners was worth about $1.4 billion. A very big number.

Boy, was I wrong.

At the end of 2018, civic gadfly Steve Dieters publicly shared information from County Auditor Dusty Rhodes. If anyone would know the exact amount of abated property, it would be the auditor, who tracks taxes due on each chunk of county real estate. Dusty’s report:

The market value of ALL Cincinnati property totals about $26 billion.

The market value of ALL tax exempt property totals about $9.4 billion. (That includes both abated property and traditionally exempt property such as churches, schools and parks.)

The market value of abated property is about $3.5 billion.

Dang. I missed more than $2 billion in tax breaks.

That $3.5 billion in tax abated property is about 20 percent – $1 in $5 – of the non-exempt property taxed to pay for our schools, library, zoo, indigent health care and other important services. And the exempt share keeps growing.

If Cincinnati’s tax abated properties paid real estate taxes at the same rate as the rest of us, they would pay about $100 million more each year for local services, lowering the taxes that the rest of us pay.

The politicians passing out these tax abatements argue that they are "pro-growth," bringing jobs and development. What’s wrong with passing out a few tax discounts – often to deep-pocketed campaign donors – on land that is just sitting there not generating taxes now?

But the result has been a slow but relentless shift of the tax burden to a shrinking percentage of taxpayers asked to make up the difference.

Here’s how this works. Say the owners of a grand old home in Hyde Park or a multi-acre Indian Hill estate want to "downsize." They acquire a glitzy new habitation in town with a tax bill more suitable for a police officer than a poo-bah. Examples from the auditor’s website:

A new $1.28 million home on Baum St. in Mt. Adams would pay $20,900 annually in school taxes. But the tax-abated bill is only for $2,450, about what the owner of a $146,520 home in Price Hill or Westwood pays, but without river views.

A new $713,000 condo on Erie Avenue in Hyde Park pays a school tax of only $3,228 per year. That’s about what the owner of a $198,000 home in Evanston or Kennedy Heights pays.

Taxes calibrated to the value of property is founded on the quaint premise that those who can afford something grand should pay more than those who cannot. That’s not how it’s working in Cincinnati.

The shrinking pool of homeowners still paying "retail" for public services have noticed. In Hyde Park and Mount Lookout, abatements have created an incentive to tear down charming historic homes. Owners of older homes, with higher utility and maintenance costs, see tax bills relentlessly climb, as they pick up the tab for their neighbor’s brand new energy-efficient palace. Those trying to sell unabated homes are competing with sellers of homes taxed at discounted rates, forcing down their older home’s value.

It’s time for City Council and the mayor to turn off the tax abatement spigot at City Hall. Just don’t make those decisions by text message.

Clifton resident Don Mooney is a retired labor attorney and a member of The Enquirer's Board of Contributors.