Chillicothe — In his 23-minute briefing in the latest council session, Mayor Luke Feeney ended by explaining how he is guiding the city into dealing with the loss of revenue from closure of the paper mill.

Pixelle Specialty Solutions has finally shut down operations, and most of the 830 employees at the time of the April 15th announcement have been laid off. That means a major drop in the income taxes that the city partly depends on to fund the government.

He had pointed out in an April council session :

The Pixelle paper mill is the city’s largest employer; there are larger ones outside the city limits, but 100% of mill employees pay the city income tax.

That is $1.4M to $1.5M, about 8% of the city’s total income tax.

In 2013, the calculated impact of the mill was 13% – now it’s 8

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