Monday, February 28, 2000
Campbell County may help cities collect taxes
Centralized system success in Kenton
BY TERRY FLYNN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COLD SPRING — A proposal by Campbell County Fiscal Court to serve as a central collection arm for occupational license fees in cities as well as the county has met with mostly favorable response.
The Campbell County plan is patterned on a successful, 3-year-old program in Kenton County. The Kenton County tax department collects occupational license fees for every city except Covington and distributes the funds back to the cities.
“We intend to move forward with a new collection system, including new computer software, hopefully by April 1,” Campbell Judge-executive Steve Pendery said. “We plan to collect more money, re gardless of whether any cities are involved. We will have an additional person in the tax-collection area to handle the program. We feel we can offer this service to the cities and be a benefit to them and to the businesses in the county.”
Campbell County administrator Mac McMillan said he had already advertised for bids from software companies and expected to have prices available for county commissioners to make a decision in selecting a computer company in March.
The idea originally came from a committee of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. The initial proposal to Kenton Fiscal Court was in 1992. The program went on line in 1997.
“The county and all the cities collected more tax reve
nue the first year we had the system in place (1997) than for the previous year,” Kenton County Treasurer Ivan Frye said. “We proved that the cities could get more tax money from a central collection system. I have no doubt that Campbell County can do the same thing.”
Fort Wright City Administrator Larry Klein, who was the chief architect of the central collection system when he worked for Mr. Frye and Kenton County, said the system actually was of greater benefit to the smaller cities.
“In Kenton County, the smaller the city, the larger the (revenue) gain by percentage,” Mr. Klein said.
He said Kenton County instituted a $175 countywide occupational license for businesses, which then enabled a business to function in several cities without purchasing separate licenses in each municipality.
“Each city receives a portion of every countywide license, based on a formula,” he said.
Bellevue Clerk/Treasurer Mary Scott said she wondered whether the cities “should wait until the county has the system in place and see how well it works.”
Mr. Frye pointed out that Kenton County already had the necessary personnel in place when the program began in 1997, while Campbell County is hiring a new employee to work with tax collection.
“We intend to help (Campbell County) by explaining our mistakes and how we took care of them,” he said.
He said one of the major benefits of the county's collecting occupational license fees for the cities is giving city clerks and treasurers more time to devote to other duties.
Representatives from Fort Thomas, Alexandria and Melbourne said they were in favor of the central collection plan and would urge their cities to approve the move.
Wilder Mayor Harold “Bo” Wright, however, said his city's tax-collection department did an excellent job and expected problems in selling the countywide system to his city council.
Mr. Pendery said he wanted to initially work with one city for a few months to be certain the system was working properly before the other cities came on board, probably by the end of the year.
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