By Steve Kemme
The Cincinnati Enquirer

SPRINGDALE - Struggling small businesses have caused such a decline in earnings taxes that city officials are considering asking voters to approve the city's first tax hike in 32 years.

City officials plan to vote in December on a proposal to place a half-percent earnings tax increase on the March 2 primary election ballot. It would raise the earnings tax from 1 percent to 1.5 percent.

"The state of the general economy has taken a toll on us," Mayor Doyle Webster said. "We're just suffering along with the rest of the state."

Springdale's earnings tax revenue last year fell to about $9 million, $1 million below the $10 million level of 2001.This year's earnings tax revenue also is expected to be around $9 million.

City Council will vote on the tax increase Dec. 3. Council had its first reading of the tax ordinance last week. It will have three more readings at council meetings Nov. 5, Nov. 19 and Dec. 3."This way, it will give residents and businesses a chance to tell us why we shouldn't do it," Webster said.

Aside from talk of raising taxes, Springdale has tried to cut costs. It has refrained from filling seven employee positions that opened up in the past year; delayed road improvement projects; and delayed plans to buy vehicles, including an ambulance, police cruiser, street sweeper and a dump truck.

Of 31 communities in Greater Cincinnati that have earnings taxes, 19 are higher than 1 percent, Webster said.

Springdale officials aren't worried only about meeting expenses. They're also concerned that the city's revenue will dip so low that they won't have enough discretionary funds to use as matching money for federal and state grants.

In the past four years, Springdale's matching money has attracted $2.3 million in federal and state funding. "Without those matching funds, we're dead in the water," Webster said.

E-mail skemme@enquirer.com