{"id":20005,"date":"2026-07-09T18:35:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=20005"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:35:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T18:35:33","slug":"a-poor-citys-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/09\/a-poor-citys-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"A Poor City\u2019s Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Donald Perryman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Truth Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor<\/em>. \u00a0\u2013 <\/em>James Baldwin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Toledo spent more on public safety this summer than it could afford. In November, it will ask voters to make up the difference.<\/p>\n

With the summer that Toledo has had \u2014 a mass shooting at a community festival, graduation brawls, officers caught on video cursing at children on a street corner \u2014 nobody blames residents for wanting somebody to do something. That something currently on the table is a proposed quarter-cent temporary income tax.<\/p>\n

Toledo knows what it means to run out of budget before you run out of need. So does Vanice Williams.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is struggling now,\u201d the council president told The Blade. \u201cI am struggling right now financially to figure out what to pay and how to pay it.\u201d That is why, she said, the decision belongs to voters.<\/p>\n

She is right. It deserves a serious conversation.<\/p>\n

Why the Tax Makes Sense<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toledo\u2019s police department entered 2026 already bleeding \u2014 and the state of Ohio is partly to blame, according to Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz. \u201cSince 2008, Columbus has cut $288 million in shared revenue from Toledo, roughly $16 million every year \u2014 the financial equivalent of the Jeep plant closing every year for 20 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The $25 million the proposed tax is expected to generate annually is roughly enough to restore what the budget took away: a recruit class cut from 25 officers to 20, ShotSpotter \u2014 the gunfire detection system that gave the city ears on its streets, and equipment purchases delayed across police and fire. A department losing more officers to retirement than it gains from each class cannot hold the line indefinitely.<\/p>\n

I get it. Toledoans are living with something heavier than frustration \u2014 the low-grade fear that nowhere is safe, the anxiety that follows a summer like this one. And, after the Old West End Festival shooting, we are fed up on top of that. We have every right to be ALL of that.<\/p>\n

But fear and being fed up, without resources to respond, are just dread and anger with nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

Who Is Being Asked to Carry This<\/strong><\/p>\n

Toledo\u2019s median household income is $49,724. A quarter-cent tax on that is $124 a year \u2014 $2.39 a week. For a household with some cushion, that is manageable, if not welcome. But Toledo\u2019s Black households earn a median of $33,912. The same rate costs that household $85 a year \u2014 $1.63 a week.<\/p>\n

On a budget already stretched thin, in a city where nearly one in four residents lives below the poverty line \u2014 almost double Ohio\u2019s statewide rate \u2014 the level of sacrifice is determined by how much is left after you pay the tax. For Black households, that margin is already thin.<\/p>\n

Council President Williams is not alone in her struggle to pay her own bills. Thousands of Toledoans in the neighborhoods most affected by crime sit in the same spot \u2014 asked to fund the safety infrastructure and supports their streets need most, to replace resources the state cut.<\/p>\n

What the Tax Cannot Do<\/strong><\/p>\n

A public safety tax buys a response. It does not buy prevention. Malcolm Cunningham\u2019s Mayor\u2019s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement \u2014 and the Save Our Community initiative it oversees, run by Raymond Campos with eight violence interrupters working in schools, neighborhoods and community centers \u2014 have produced a documented 50 percent decline in citywide violence since 2021, running on patchwork federal grants with no permanent line item in the city budget. This tax leaves that unchanged. The communities asking why they can\u2019t be safe need both: resources that respond when violence happens and investment in what prevents it. Half a solution dressed as a whole one won\u2019t hold.<\/p>\n

The Question Worth Asking First<\/strong><\/p>\n

If this tax passes, demand to know publicly what happens to the prevention side of the ledger \u2014 whether Malcolm Cunningham\u2019s MONSE and Raymond Campos\u2019s Save Our Community get a permanent line item, and whether the churches, block clubs and community organizations holding these neighborhoods together get the same urgency that a tax ballot measure got.<\/p>\n

Toledo wants to feel safer \u2014 a tax is a start. But it is not the finish line.<\/p>\n

Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, PhD, at <\/em>drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rev. Donald L. Perryman, Ph.D. The Truth Contributor \u00a0\u00a0Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor. \u00a0\u2013 James Baldwin   Toledo spent more on public safety this summer than it could afford. In November, it will ask voters to make up the difference. With the summer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[355],"class_list":["post-20005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20006,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20005\/revisions\/20006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20005"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=20005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}