Two years ago, the average Ironton resident had never even heard the phrase &#8220municipal fee.” Since then, hardly anyone has been able to forget it and Tuesday's ballot will offer a refresher course.

Revenue stream

The concept itself, charging Ironton households a set fee each month to help the city generate some much-needed revenue, has taken countless forms since first proposed by Mayor John Elam. City council considered a $3 version, and a $5 plan, and $7, $10, $15 and probably several combinations in between. Each time, the fee was voted down.

Voters will have the chance to change that Tuesday at the polls. Residents will be asked to OK a $10 per month fee that would automatically expire Nov. 30, 2008.

If adopted, the fee would generate approximately $500,000 a year, most of which is needed to bridge the city's gap between revenues and expenses. Ten percent of the money would go tothe Ironton Port Authority for economic development.

&#8220Without it, it's going to be difficult, if not impossible, to manage next year's budget,” Mayor Elam said recently. Elam projects the City of Ironton will be broke six months into next year without some sort of revenue fix. That is why some officials have pushed for the fee, despite many questions that swirl around the legalities of it and what to do if the voters say &#8220no thanks.”

Legalese

Perhaps the biggest question is simply: Can council adopt a fee just to generate revenue?

&#8220The city solicitor has told council that it was legal,” council chairman Jim Tordiff said.

The legal opinion offered initially indicated that there was nothing in the Ohio Revised Code, state law or the constitution that would prohibit it.

The fee would be the only one of its kind in the state, as far as most sources are concerned. Ironton did have a fee of just a few dollars in the late 1990s that passed audits and the city currently has a floodwall fee and a fire fee to which some have compared the municipal fee.

Dr. Sam Staley is not so sure these comparisons apply. Staley is a public finance expert and senior fellow at The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions, a non-partisan research and educational institute that looks at government, economics and other policy issues.

Staley called the fee, as it was explained to him, questionable and said he &#8220strongly suspects it would be illegal.”

&#8220If what the government body is doing is using a fee to raise general revenue that is going into the general fund to be used for some future purpose then that is a tax,” Staley alluding to strict laws that regulate how taxes are levied. &#8220A general fee to raise revenue for government is in all intents and purposes a tax. It sounds to me like they are circumventing the public will (since an income tax was defeated at the polls).”

For it to be a true &#8220fee,” the plan must be to fund a specific service and the revenue has to have specific uses under that plan, Staley said.

&#8220There has to be a plan for spending the money,” he said.

However, if the voters OK the fee as a charter change, it still has some public policy and finance concerns, but not nearly as many legal concerns, Staley said.

&#8220Legally, it is not as much of a problem because the courts have been pretty deferential to decisions of the voters,” he said.

A Columbus-area attorney who specializes in cases involving city finance disagreed with Staley, saying that unless it is clearly prohibited by law, then a council could pass a fee that wasn't income based. The attorney refused to allow his name to be published, however.

To the polls

Election Day could create more questions. What happens if the voters nix the fee? Can council still adopt a similar plan or would that go against the voters' will? That too is rather murky.

&#8220If it is within their authority to pass such a fee, then I seriously doubt that, in all circumstances, that the authority of council is absolved or disqualified just because the voters vote one way or the other,” said James Lee, a spokesperson for the Ohio Secretary of State's Office which oversees elections and ballot issues in the state.

At least two attorneys agree with Lee's assessment that council could adopt the fee, regardless what happens at the polls, though the attorneys declined to comment specifically without further research.

Without knowing all the specifics, Lee said it is impossible to know for sure what the ramifications would be if council passed the fee if it had been voted down.

&#8220Ohio law gives a lot of authority to municipalities, especially when talking about a charter city. It is known as home rule and it has a pretty broad reach for locally elected officials,” Lee said.

&#8220Once a legislative authority passes something - on a state, county or local level - in order to get such a thing taken off the books usually requires some action in courts.”

First, voters will have their say when they visit the polls Tuesday.