BY TOM O'NEILL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEW RICHMOND -- Numerous projects have been put on hold in New Richmond schools pending a decision on Cinergy Corp.'s request for a $54 million cut in its property tax assessment at two Clermont County power plants.
The district is heavily reliant on those property taxes. Cinergy plants in Pierce Township and Moscow have fueled $25 million in remodeling and expansion in the district in the past five years, with another $6 million in remodeling scheduled this summer, Superintendent Larry Grooms said Tuesday.
A hearing on the rollback request is scheduled May 22 at the county auditor's office. The rollback could save Cinergy $2 million out of the $2.4 million it pays annually in property taxes, according to Chief Deputy Auditor Chuck Tilbury.
Cinergy also is pursuing $800,000 in assessment reductions at five Hamilton County facilities, including its downtown corporate headquarters, spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said Tuesday.
Similar requests for four Butler County facilities led to a combined $65,000 decrease in property taxes there last year, she said. The reassessment requests follow a nationwide trend by utilities that cite, in part, that industry deregulation has lowered their property values.
The Clermont request pits two powerful entities that have over the years forged a relationship both describe as positive.
Ms. Meinke said Cinergy -- which provides millions of dollars in annual tax revenue to the district and local municipalities -- has a primary obligation to its customers, and called the rollback request "a prudent business decision."
Mr. Grooms said his top concern is quality of education. He said the district might have to return $600,000 in tax revenue generated by the Walter C. Beckjord Generating Station in Pierce Township and the William H. Zimmer Power Generating Station in Moscow.
The rollback request is retroactive to 1997, half of which the schools already have received. The anticipated first-year loss, he said, would be 10 percent of the district's revenue.
He said no personnel would immediately be affected. The district's teacher-student ratio of 18.7-to-1 is lower than many surrounding districts.
Cinergy wants assessments at Beckjord and Zimmer reduced from $66.2 million to $12.02 million. Real property at the two power plants, encompassing 518.27 acres, was assessed at $53.2 million in 1993, Mr. Tilbury said.
The school district filed a countercomplaint with the auditor's Board of Revisions.
Postponed projects include new baseball and soccer fields on 98 acres of recently purchased land adjacent to the current athletic complex, and a media retrieval computer system for the high school and middle school, estimated at $200,000.
"There's just been a lot of benefit here from them, but I can understand their side, too," freshman David Jewell of Monroe Township said as he prepared for a Tuesday afternoon match against Bethel on tennis courts paid for by tax revenue from the two plants. "They're trying to run a major corporation."
Orene Norris of Moscow recently registered her 4-year-old daughter, Samantha, for kindergarten in the New Richmond schools. "It's pretty scary," she said of the potential cutbacks. Directly behind their home, steam from the Zimmer plant's cooling towers billowed into the sky.
"It's kind of frightening looking," she said of the plant. "But it's never been a problem and it's been real good for the schools." The rollback also would affect municipalities. New Richmond City Administrator Dave Kennedy said the village stands to lose about $26,000 annually if the request is granted.
Mr. Kennedy called Cinergy "a great neighbor and corporate citizen," citing a $5,000 donation from the Cinergy Foundation to the village's comprehensive economic study.
