MANSFIELD — Kelly Blankenship didn’t throw up a financial stop sign Tuesday night during a City Council meeting.
But the city’s finance director certainly issued a blinking yellow light in terms of revenues through the first four months of 2025, part of which she attributed to a change in state tax collection rules.
“As far as expenditures go, everyone is within their budget,” she said. “However, we are still higher than last year’s number in our expenditures when we’re comparing the two.”
It’s the revenue side that had Blankenship concerned.
“(I have a) very cautious outlook there because income taxes are slightly below estimated revenue for this year, which is unusual. When we did the final (2025) budget, we lowered that estimate at the time from the temporary budget … and we’re still lagging by 1 percent,” Blankenship said.
“Compared to last year, the first quarter was 7.5 percent less than last year. As of April, it’s 9 percent less than last year and that’s largely in the business net profit area is what’s driving that,” the finance director said.
She said withholding tax revenues have seen a slight increase and individual tax returns are also as expected.
Blankenship said changes at the state level in business net profit tax collections are impacting city revenues.
In Ohio, businesses operating within a municipality that levies an income tax are generally subject to a municipal net profit tax. This tax is applied to the business’s net profits generated within that specific municipality.
Under a change at the state level, companies are now allowed to apply their losses and carry them forward at 100 percent for five years, according to the city finance director.
“In the past, we limited that carry forward to 50 percent for the same time period and that kind of helps slow those business losses from hitting our books at the same rate,” Blankenship said.
“The state changes have not helped us at all in that regard. So we’re gonna keep a close eye on that revenue as we go through the year,” she said.
“Hopefully, I mean, I don’t foresee at this point in time us having to make any (budget) changes. But if this doesn’t right itself, then we’ll be looking at not having very much of a carryover at the end of the year,” the finance director said.
In other activity on Tuesday, City Council:
— accepted and appropriated $27,506.01 in “unanticipated forfeiture revenue” by the Mansfield Police Department for use by the department, including the METRICH Enforcement Unit.
— authorized a “then and now” payment of $4,200 to the Baker, Dublikar law firm. The city Law Director’s office contracted in November 2024 with the firm to assist with a Mansfield Planning Commission case before submitting a purchase order with the Finance Department.
— authorized the city to accept a $1,000 donation from the Wal-Smart Smart Food Program to be used by the MPD Neighborhood Impact Section.
— heard from Safety Service Director Keith Porch that Mansfield has been awarded a $141,000 grant through the Ohio Violent Crime Reduction Grant Program. He said funds will be used for investigative overtime costs and will also fully fund the 24 fixed FLOCK cameras for a third year throughout the city under the grant program.
