Toledo finance committee hears mixed first-quarter receipts; ARPA allocations fully obligated

At its regular monthly meeting, the Toledo Finance, Debt and Budget Oversight Committee received first-quarter revenue and expenditure reports showing overall income-tax receipts up 8.4% through March even as withholding for March fell by about $4.5 million, committee members were told. Finance staff also reported that Toledo’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allocations are fully obligated, with roughly $145.7 million spent through March and about $39.3 million remaining. City Auditor John Revolsky said he is revising the annual internal audit plan and expects to issue a performance-measure audit in early May.

Commissioner John Zavisha, who presented the income-tax figures, said, “For withholding for the month of March, the city of Toledo was down $4,514,000 or about 2.9 percent.” He told the committee the March shortfall largely reflects timing and a single top-20 employer that was down for the month; he said April returns will reflect February activity and staff expected additional clarity after next month’s filings. Zavisha said that, through March, withholding is up about 4.6% year to date (roughly $1.5 million) and overall income-tax collections were up about $3 million, or 8.4%, through March.

Zavisha told members that business net profits drove much of the year-to-date increase and that more than half of the business-net-profits gain came from five large companies in the city’s…