06.15.20 MEETING MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, June 15, 2020 Page 14 Mr. Wynne asked, just which part, Mayor? I'm sorry. Mayor Bodnar replied, everything. Mr. Wynne stated, your comments earlier about the ordinance is that the percentage of the budget is nominal to what it is you are looking at. Denny's comments about the municipal income tax, his concerns are the same ones that I have. Even though the Governor threw everybody a lifeline with the work from home and the way that those taxes are currently handled, those individuals themselves when they file their tax return could file a request for refund if they work from a municipality whose income tax rate was lower than ours or they had a tax credit that was lower than ours. What happens once that emergency order is lifted? What it will mean for those individuals who still stay at home? So, from a budgeting standpoint and as far as our revenue goes, that's something we need to be very conscious of and look at having plans in place to address those depending upon what might happen. Mr. Coyne stated, if I can add to that, Councilman Murphy, your points are very well taken. It's interesting, the Law Department is trying to keep up with these very unusual emergency declarations and the legislation, House Bill 197 which affects how municipalities operate. Ironically, the Village is in good shape from the standpoint that your income tax collections are still, when you compare the first 9 months from this year to last year, it's up like $475,000 and comparing it to 2018 it's still up. But the way the law is written now, once this recission in the Stay At Home Order as relates to where you work and where your taxes go, there's a 30 -day grace period, so for purposes, let's say Progressive Insurance, as I understand it, their employees are working remotely at their home in whatever city in which they live through September 1. So, if the Governor relieves us of the Stay At Home provision to August 1, there's a 30 -day grace period, so it would not affect the Village at all. We don't know when that date is going to come. It's sort of hard to tell. That's the way it currently operates. I also think that the Ohio Municipal League and others are starting to really look at this. The Plain Dealer carried a pretty accurate article on how the legislation could affect some cities. They mentioned it would be seriously financially hard in Solon, Mayfield Heights and the City of Cleveland. So, I do think that the Legislature and the Governor have to make sure that they don't do anything that would be unanticipated from the COVID regulations that have been put in place. We are going to follow that and keep the Administration advised and Council advised so at some point in time we will know when those declarations and emergency legislation changes if it would affect the cash flow of the Village going forward. Mrs. Bodnar stated, Tony, it's my understanding that the current law says that when the Governor's Declaration of Emergency ends, the 30 days extends from that time, not necessarily when we can go back to work. It's not tied into Stay at Home, it's more tied into the Declaration of Emergency. Mr. Coyne replied, yes. If I wasn't clear, that's exactly what it means. It's the Declaration, when it gets rescinded or when the emergency is over and I do think that the State's going to have to look at what different companies are doing because some may extend it farther just because they want to be particularly careful. I know there's some companies that use a lot of partitioned office space and they can't get the social distancing down so they may extend it until they believe that we are out of this coronavirus problem.