By Gregory Korte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati City Council will vote Wednesday on competing plans to roll back property tax rates for city homeowners.

A Republican plan, pushed by Councilman Pat DeWine, would roll back the rate from 5.27 mills to 5.0 mills - effectively erasing a $1.2 million tax increase passed by City Council last year and returning taxes to the 1999 rate.

But others on City Council support a more modest rollback, to 5.2 mills. That rollback would result in neither an increase nor decrease in taxes, because property values have gone up.

The difference between the two plans is less than $7 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home, DeWine said.

In a Finance Committee meeting filled with election-year rhetoric, both sides tried to score debating points. DeWine said the tax cut was the only way to force City Council to kick its spending habit.

"If you send money to this City Council, they will spend it - and odds are, not very well," he said, noting $16 million in off-budget spending by City Council this term.

Democrat David Crowley, who has criticized previous Republican-led rollback efforts as saving homeowners the cost of two pizzas, called the current proposal "a six-pack and a bag of pretzels."

Democrat David Pepper said the DeWine plan would scuttle his attempts to give more targeted property tax relief to senior citizens. Pepper would model the program after a tax credit system in Dayton, but Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes says it's illegal.

The Finance Committee deadlocked on both plans Monday. Republican Chris Monzel and Democrat John Cranley voted for the DeWine plan; Democrat Minette Cooper joined Crowley and Pepper.

With two weeks before the Nov. 4 election, other Republican candidates for city council - John Connelly, Leslie Ghiz, Sam Malone and Barbara W. Trauth - gave speeches on the steps of City Hall Monday supporting the DeWine plan.

Council has until Oct. 30 to send its tax rate to the county auditor.

E-mail gkorte@enquirer.com