Covington Mayor Joe Meyer recently delivered his annual State of the City address at the Covington Business Council’s monthly luncheon where he spoke about what he viewed as the city’s successes over the past year.
He also touched on the working relationship between state, county and city governments, regionalism and Kenton County’s payroll tax hike last November.
Brent Spence Bridge
The City of Covington and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet collaborated on the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project parameters. The $3 billion infrastructure project will expand the I-71/75 corridor in Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati and construct a new companion bridge to the west of the current Brent Spence Bridge.
Meyer acknowledged the improved working relationship between the governmental entities. In past years, he said it was a more combative relationship as the city and KYTC went back and forth on differing visions of the project. Two specific points of contention, he said, were whether the bridge would have tolls and how construction would impact Covington’s environment and business community.
Meyer said the relationship improved due to “strong, effective, responsive” leadership from Gov. Andy Beshear and Transportation Secretary Jim Gray.
“Our negotiations on that project reduce the negative impacts and gave the city significant environmental improvements,” Meyer said.
In January, President Joe Biden announced $1.6 billion in federal infrastructure funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, which Meyer said provided “a lot of help” in the project’s progress.
Economic development
Workforce. Attraction. Retention.
These are three items Meyer repeated when discussing the economic development of Covington since he took office.
Meyer said the city is supporting more than 120 small businesses.
“We know that in small businesses that create the quality of place that many farms so attractive,” Meyer said. “It’s an important part of our city’s portfolio to promote growth. Our large employers do provide in our tax revenue, but our spirit comes from our small businesses.”
Additionally, Meyer touted the city’s commitment to historic preservation, which has improved the quality of city buildings and overall housing stock.
“Covington provides the environment where people today want to live,” Meyer said.
Regionalism
Meyer opined on the state of regionalism in Northern Kentucky, stating that too many municipalities spend too much time competing internally.
“We don’t acknowledge or respect the interest of the many, many governments we have here,” Meyer said.
This internal competition can stifle Northern Kentucky, as a region, from collectively advocating for itself in Frankfort, he said; Northern Kentucky can not reach its full potential unless it can resolve competing interests locally.
“We will not be what we can or should be until we first find a way to resolve our competing interest locally and develop some sort of overarching commonality and inclusive commonality,” Meyer said. “Right now, Northern Kentucky is a territorial description. Our commonality is that we all live within these three counties. And what else?”
Payroll tax
Last November, the Kenton County Fiscal Court voted to increase the occupational license, or payroll tax, from $.7097 to $.9097.
This caused a stir among the Kenton County mayors group, most notably Meyer, who said the tax would fall most heavily on small businesses.
“Leaders have been told from decades that it’s 2.5% rate was a disincentive to job creation and economic development,” Meyer said.
At a January Kenton County mayors group meeting, Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann said the county’s rationale behind the tax hike was to solve the “balance of revenue generation” between payroll and property taxes.
Knochelmann said if the issue wasn’t addressed, the county would be in a “very, very horrific financial condition” in the long-term [and] short-term.
From Meyer’s perspective, the tax increase heightened the burden on employees within the city. Most of Covington’s general fund revenue comes from payroll taxes, followed by property taxes.
Meyer said he believes the city’s interests were “overlooked or ignored” when the county passed the payroll tax increase.
“The city’s work has made so much more challenging when organizations unfamiliar with the breadth of the city’s responsibilities, making unilateral decisions that impair our interest,” Meyer said.
