Fairborn City Council discuss potential police and fire levy

From 2022 to 2024, Fairborn benefited from strong income tax performance, coupled with federal ARPA revenues, according to a city spokesperson.

Fairborn used its ARPA dollars for additional projects but also supplemented police and fire operations and capital expenses with ARPA revenues.

City officials said in 2025, those expenses will be supported by the general fund, police and fire/EMS funds.

Fairborn’s revenue outpaced its expenditures by over $5.2 million in 2022, $4.5 million in 2023, and $1.4 million in 2024.

For 2025, Fairborn’s budgeted expenses are greater than budgeted revenues, by about $9.2 million.

Many government agencies budget conservatively, with year-end results coming in less dire than the original forecast. Fairborn officials said they have “historically had a positive budget variance annually,” seeing expenses come in under budget by the end of the year.

City government leaders have not taken official action yet about a ballot issue. Since the deadline for the May election has passed, November would be the earliest opportunity for city council to put a police and fire levy on the ballot if they choose to.

Both Fairborn’s police budget and Fire/EMS budget are comprised largely of both income and property taxes, though the latter is supplemented by EMS collections. Revenues for both departments have been stable, but expenses are outpacing the increase in revenues, city documents show.

Property tax represents about 10% of funding sources, but 93% of property tax goes to police and fire/EMS.

Fairborn passed a 4.4 mill police, fire and EMS levy in 2011, and the earliest opportunity to renew that levy is this November.

Fairborn passed an additional 1% income tax for police, fire/EMS, streets, and capital improvements in 2021.

Fairborn’s largest source of funding is income tax. Individual withholdings were up nearly 8% from last year, corporate income tax contributions, or business profits tax, nearly doubled to $2.55 million.

“Trends in Corporate Income taxes have been up across the region, but this bump is thought to be attributed to one of Fairborn’s major employers,” city documents show.