Benton Harbor City Commissioners are calling for more staff to be hired to help administer the city’s income tax.
At a meeting of the city Personnel and Finance Committee this week, Human Resources Coordinator and Income Tax Administrator Lisa Golliday was asked about the level of support she has. She said relative to other Michigan cities with their own income tax, not much.
“Normally, for any cities that have the city income tax department — there’s 24 cities — in every city, they have at least three or four people in just that department, one just for compliance,” Golliday said. “It’s only just myself in that department.”
Committee members and commissioners wondered how Golliday could have the time to handle enforcement, collections, processing, and refunds by herself. Commissioner Diedre Fields asked City Manager Alex Little why there aren’t more staff members involved.
“Isn’t income tax, which is the money we’re using, important to get all of it, as much as we can, but we don’t have a support staff? Could that be a yes or no? Because I’m getting lost,” Fields said.
Golliday said she’s processing returns now to get refunds out by the deadline. That doesn’t leave her much time for compliance to ensure people are paying, and Commissioner Sharon Henderson said that’s an essential task.
“In order to increase our collections, this is like a no-brainer,” Henderson said. “We need somebody in that department, even if it’s part time.”
Commissioners were told there once was a related position in the budget, but it isn’t filled. Committee Chair and Commissioner Edward Isom told Little it’s time to fix that.
