After more than four years of back-and-forth arguing, Mahoning County Commissioners finally got the bad news concerning back-taxes on Oakhill Renaissance Place from the lawyer hired to try and negotiate with the Ohio Department of Taxation.
"Taxes that accrued at a time when the county did not own the property at Oakhill [must] be either paid, or contracted for payment," said Atty. Ray Anderson of Columbus.
At the time of Oakhill's purchase, its former owner, Southside Community Development Corporation, owed about $430,000 in back taxes and interest. The bill is now more than $700,000.
As part of the original deal, the county assumed all of Oakhill's outstanding debts, something County Auditor Mike Sciortino, among others, tried to warn against. Sciortino Thursday called the situation "unconscionable," adding, "those decisions that were not made, those leadership decisions, that were failure decisions, now cost taxpayers an additional $300,000."
Commissioners agreed to enter in a five-year plan to pay the back taxes. This may help another request from the board -- to make the county exempt from any taxes after Oakhill was purchased.
"Before an exemption can be applied for, all of the past-due taxes either had to be paid or an agreement or payment plan had to be entered into," said County Prosecutor Paul Gains.
In the meantime, the county's administrator, George Tablack, said these latest additional expenses will be recovered through rent paid by tenants like the Department of Jobs and Family Services.
While Sciortino again questioned the original plans for Oakhill claiming he's never seen them, Tablack and others say they will continue working to reverse the decision by the state.
