Saturday’s edition of the Lebanon Democrat reports that Davis comments that a 34 cent increase in the property tax rate on a $200,000 house would only be $80 per year. Our tax rate is now at $2.23 after being certified by the state this year (county reappraised us so the State lowered the rate). Ok, on a $200,000 house that is a tax bill of $1,115 per year. With Davis’s $0.34 increase, our tax rate would be $2.57. On a $200,000 house that would be a tax bill of $1,285.
$1,115 vs. $1,285. My math shows a $170 increase, not a $80 increase.
Another ludicrous comment out of the article came when he quoted a lady who called him who made $360,000 per year and would not mind a small tax increase of presumably $80. Why didn’t he quote someone making $70,000 as a family, that would be more in line on who has a $200,000 house? ($360,000 income would qualify them for a $1,000,000 house) Why because a $170 increase is real money for people at the middle class, not the $360,000 families.
As an FYI, a $1,000,000 house will pay $850 more, or $400 in Davis’s stupid fuzzy math.
Davis also avoided stating the proposed 34 cent increase in relative terms. That is a 15.25% increase in our bills. Hall and Davis are whining about MTEMC’s 20% increase in utilities, and ironically they want to stick it to us with a 15.25% increase in our tax bill.
Hall mentioned that the State is giving $400,000 less this year. Ok, that’s $400,000 out of the $7,500,000 requested. Where is the other $7,100,000 going? We already pointed out, and Hall agreed, that there is only 1 new school online this year, not 3 as Davis is claiming.
Hall pointed out that 400 new kids are in the system. That includes 3 kids who have been pulled out by their parents, but not recorded by the school system yet. Yes, one family checked last week. So if we extrapolate that out, there are probably much more than 3 kids in the county taken out of the system, but the schools are keeping on the rolls until the legal deadline to artificially inflate numbers for budgetary debate reasons.
Davis says that the tax rate has not kept up with growth rate. All of those thousands of new homes in the county since the last rate increase is growth in tax revenue. But that is not enough. Davis carefully avoids mentioning the growth in tax revenues due to new homes. He wants us to falsely believe that all those new homes have come on line without any increases in the revenues for the schools. Wrong Mike Davis. We are simply not up to the tax rate you think is “fair” for us to pay.
Davis’s inability to do math scares me. Keep your hands out of my pocket Mr. Davis. It is not your money.
Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.
Comment by Mike Harmon — August 25, 2008 @ 2:37 pm |