Typos in any business can be costly. That’s what the Clinton County Council found out earlier this year when they tried to approve an increase of .2 percent in support of the local Emergency Management Agency.
“Last year, the Council passed an ordinance that enacted a .2 percent income tax to support the Emergency Medical Service,” said Clinton County President Alan Dunn. “As a part of that, we have a very specific document that we had to fill out that includes a chart that has all the county’s income tax rates both before and after the ordinance being enacted.
“We, in a typographical error, had a wrong number in a wrong spot,” continued Dunn. “That ordinance was rejected by the state. By the time we were notified of our rejection, we had already missed our time getting it corrected and fixed to begin receiving monies in January of 2023. So, we made a really diligent effort with the General Assembly to come up with a legislative fix that would allow the Department of Local Finance to give them the tool we need to fix this midyear.”
Dunn added in order to fund that department for the remainder of the year, they took out short-term loan or essentially a bond anticipation note you could call it in anticipation of future tax revenues for that same amount of $1.5 million that we anticipated to get from the income tax. Then, they will pay it back to the state over the next four budget years.