In The Plain Dealer Forum page on Sunday, March 19, associate editor Joe Frolik's article titled, "Let the abatement debate begin — again" responds to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, who wants to reexamine the city's commercial and residential tax abatement policy. Frolik poses good questions and analysis on the costs and benefits of the latter 15-year 100% tax break. 

Citing the Cuyahoga County Auditor's figures, Frolik calculates the residential tax break will cost the city more than $30 million in real estate taxes this year: The city's share of lost revenue is $5.1 million and the schools' share is $16.2 million. Among the benefits are some (versus negative) revenue in developing vacant lots, spurring more redevelopment, and new residents raising income tax revenues for the city.   

Most importantly for this section, Frolik briefly mentions a few options to consider a "mend but not end" the city's abatement policy. We thank Frolik for these starting points in the abatement debate, and offer this section of the site as a work space to gather ideas & search for best practices on options; a supplement to the local data being gathered by scholars at Cleveland State University's Levin College on the impact of the abatement program.

Council must vote on keeping or revising tax abatement by June 15, 2007 when the current law expires. Councilwoman Sabra Pierce Scott, who chairs the committee, said council won't vote on the measure until receiving CSU's study.

Update:

March 07—Roldo digs into the numbers of the CSU study, finding "meager" to no benefit for continuing tax abatement. 

Feb. 07—CSU study finds abatement program is increasing Cleveland's population and tax base, lead author recommends continuing the program.

Jan. 07—The Cleveland Tax Abatement debate continues as builders threaten that they won’t build in the city without the same, unaltered tax abatement. This is a test of will for Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson who has expressed concerns about tax abatements, calling them "a good tool, but to what end?"

The Plain Dealer editors also weighed in, calling for a tax abatement policy that is more sensitive to the changes in the market.

So far, the city has looked at a tiered approach that would scale the abatement back over a set number of years. But, the city has not yet looked at adjusting tax abatement based on the conditions of the market by neighborhood—i.e. if conditions improve above a percentage of the regional housing average, abatements would end. See links below to explore that and other options.