CINCINNATI (AP) - After mistakenly receiving a $6.2 million payment a few years ago, the city of Cincinnati is being asked to repay the money.
The estate tax funds actually belonged to the village of Glendale, not Cincinnati, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported recently (https://cin.ci/1TM1rgm).
A filing error sent the money to the wrong community. Ohio’s estate tax, repealed in 2013, set aside a portion of Thomas Carruthers IV’s fortune for his hometown - Glendale, just north of Cincinnati.
Hamilton County Auditor Dusty Rhodes said paperwork listed Carruthers’ address on Oak Road, but his estate attorney didn’t include a ZIP code. Someone mistakenly assumed Carruthers’ Oak Road was Cincinnati’s Oak Street and assigned the documents to the city.
Carruthers served on the village’s park board, planning commission and volunteer fire department. His assets were valued at $120 million when he died.
The $6.2 million is about twice the size of the northern Cincinnati suburb’s annual budget. Glendale is creating an endowment to help pay for services for its 2,200 residents.
City officials said they accounted for the funds in their overall budget and spent it. Lawyers have been negotiating a plan to pay back the money with interest.
Rhodes is confident a repayment deal will happen. He said Cincinnati will likely pay approximately 2 percent interest on the funds, and Glendale will allow the payments to be made in installments.
“They got money they weren’t entitled to and they have to pay it back,” Rhodes said. “It’s that simple.”
“We did not pass a budget that accounted for this,” Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black said. “A mistake was made, but we need to sit down and work in a responsible way.”
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Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, https://www.enquirer.com
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