Decatur Polls Residents on Taxes
Decatur Metro | March 29, 2010Two new multiple choice questions on Decatur’s Open City Hall website deal with tax levels and whether residents have the stomach for an increase.
The first question is similar to an unofficial poll I recently threw up on DM…
In today’s current economic condition, it is the City’s goal to maintain the existing levels of service at current property tax rates. If that is not possible, which of the following options would you prefer?
- Maintain tax rate, decrease levels of service
- Maintain levels of service, increase tax rate up to one-half of a mill ($100 per year on a $400,000 property)
- Maintain levels of service, increase tax rate up to one mill ($200 per year on a $400,000 property)
- Decrease tax rate no matter how much it decreases levels of service
The second has to do with a potential new bond referendum to renovate the Police Department, Fire Station 1 and Rec Center…
Please indicate to what extent you would support or oppose a bond referendum to raise funds for capital improvements to the Police Department, Fire Station No. 1 and the Decatur Recreation Center, if the bond issue resulted in a property tax increase of one mill ($200 per year for a property worth $400,000).
- Strongly Support
- Somewhat Support
- Somewhat Oppose
- Strongly Oppose
I thought the previous bond had money in it for Fire Station 1 and the Rec Center. I know that police department, which badly needs renovation, was not included.
That is also my recollection. Was the portion of the previous bond referendum for Station 1 & the Rec Center only for preliminary design or something similar or is the City double dipping?
Looks like you guys better get ready for a 2 mill tax increase…
It’s difficult to respond this question without the City providing a bit more information. A blanket statement of “decrease service” without specifying what services and approximately to what the degree of decrease would be, makes an informed decision impossible.
Along the same lines of “not enough information,” it seems that lumping in Police and Fire physical plant spending with Recreation physical plant spending is a little disingenuous. The first two are about safety issues, while the last is….. recreation.
I’d argue that the last is not just recreation, also health and youth crime prevention. Seniors exercising are healthier and male teens playing basketball or hanging out at the pool are not getting into mischief. But can’t argue with prioritizing police and fire first.
I bet the rec center gets truancy intervention funding and all sorts of other juvenile justice style funding
Whichever side of the vote you were on on the previous referendum (I happend to have voted for it), this wouldn’t be the first time a referendum question was disengenuously designed. The date of the previous referendum was selected to be an off cycle single issue ballot precisely because that sort of elction historically has the lowest turn-out. It was felt that the supporters of the initiative would be more inclined to show up at the polls in that sort of environment than would the detractors.
“The date of the previous referendum was selected to be an off cycle single issue ballot precisely because that sort of elction historically has the lowest turn-out. It was felt that the supporters of the initiative would be more inclined to show up at the polls in that sort of environment than would the detractors.”
I know you’re a Skeptic, but got any proof there was disingenuous intent? Couldn’t the truth just as easily be stated “The timing of the previous referendum coincided with an off election year”?
Not according to several conversations I had with some of the key supporters at that time.
There was apparently a push to get thru the necessary hurddles fast enough to get it on the ballot in AUGUST precisely because if it went any longer it would have been on the November ballot with other issues. Admittidly, that was second hand conversation at the time – but the wording, the manner in which the initiatives were broken apart, the date, and the fact that this was the only issue on the ballot were absolutely crafted to pass the referendum.
Please understand that there is nothing illegal (or probably even immoral for that matter) in doing just what was done.
The purpose to my comment was more to highlight the fact that there are no neutral questions asked. Everyone has some sort of agenda and the fact that the city manager (or whoever wrote the questions) is fully aware of what was in the previous referendum and has written the questions to develop a particular response should be understtod by all.
While I think our elected officals as well as our public servants do try do their jobs with good intentions, they are humans as well and they have an oppinion on how they would like to see things work out and are smart enough to try to mold a consensus in the direction that they wish to go; I also think that many in our community may naively think that as soon as someone holds an office, that they immediately become value neutral and deserve an open ended benefit of the doubt.
Of this I am certain, as it is the source of much of the discussion at the dinner table with my spouse wishing for a greater benefit of the doubt and me less.
I was inclined to vote the “maintain service/raise the tax rate a half mil” option, but another voter’s comments gave me pause: this current economic situation isn’t permanent (well, knock wood), but a tax increase would be. I’m wondering why the City can’t simply learn to deliver the same services more effectively, using its current resources? On a microlevel in the workplace, isn’t that what everybody else is having to do right now? I know my employer is expecting me to take up the slack where the wiggle room didn’t exist before, whilst being as productive (if not more). Somehow, I’m managing to do just that. Maybe we need to tell the City that it needs to try doing the same…
Bingo. The reason that governments don’t do this, in general, is that it is a lot easier to convince 51% of voters that all will be well with a small tax increase. Lather, rinse, repeat 100 times, and thosee tiny millage increases start to add up.
Actually, in more prosperous times, the City has reduced the millage rate.
We are doing that in my nonprofit- we have (temporarily) lost some benefits, jobs are being combined and people are having to do more with less. We have actually INCREASED service with less. Seems like we could hear that the city is doing this first before they talk about raising taxes. Same for CSD and the furlough days. I want to see the fat trimmed and the belts tightened before teachers are furloughed and taxes are raised- or i want to know why it can’t be tightened. Period.
Funny how that option was left off the list…
The belt tightening has already happened in state government, local school systems and in most cities. What about at our city hall?
I also understood the previous bond included funds for Fire Station #1 and the Rec Center. I can’t form an opinion about a new bond until that is explained.
As Rod pointed out, it’s pretty hard to answer intelligently about taxes versus services unless they specify what they’re talking about. I can’t see how that poll question can possibly be useful to them as it stands.
Finally, I agree with Cuba, only am inclined to put it more emphatically: I don’t want to hear a word–not a peep–about increasing taxes OR cutting services until I’m convinced the City is taking up the slack to the same degree the rest of us are in our jobs and in our households.
If tax increases are needed because of temporary (hopefully) economic conditions, can’t they be written with automatic expiration dates? I’m woefully ignorant of local taxation laws, so excuse me if this is a dumb question.
There’s an interesting question behind this that bears some research. Decatur, like just about every local government dependent on property taxes, is hurting from a decrease in valuations. Fortunately, we haven’t been hit as hard as some, perhaps because the city has done a good job of using its revenue to help build an appealing community that can sustain its value. At what point, though, does the tax burden begin to work against that appeal? How do we identify that tipping point? Personally, I’m not there yet — the property tax I pay is proportionately less than half of what I was charged a dozen years ago in Florida, and I feel like I get a lot more for it. But while that Fla tax was high, it was only a little bit out of line with state standards. Georgia, on the other hand, is so anti-tax that Decatur stands out like a sore thumb, so we get branded as a high-tax town. Does that hurt us?
There is another tipping point that it is important to keep an eye on. As fares are raised and services are cut, like at MARTA, at some point riders will find an alternative mode of transportation. At that point the system will can collapse, revenue goes down, not up. I imagine the same thing can affect cities. As services are cut, (and especially if taxes continue to go up) at some point we will not be so attractive to new residents or businesses.
Florida does not have an income tax. I know that is a state tax, but let’s just compare the true amounts. Now, Decatur can reduce the budget. They ran a lean budget for years, because the value of real estate did not increase. With all the development, the City should be flush. But the problem is most City employees got promotions and significant raises. Then, as always happens, the employment base increased and the piggy bank was open. Ok , that was when money was flowing. Now it is not. My advice and opinion is to tighten the budget, get rid of redundant employees and stick to public safety and essential services. Skip the niceties and concentrate on essentials.
I’m sure the City Commissioners and Administration would love to hear ideas. Why don’t you call and give them specifics?
The state, not the city, gets the income taxes here, so that’s not a direct comparison.
Re city promotions and raises–are you sure that’s still true? It’s not happening in state government positions, in fact there’s furloughs and layoffs. I would be surprised if local government wasn’t in a similar situation.
Comparing Decatur to Marta is not very useful. Let’s stay focused.
Taxes can have expiration dates but party politics rule.
If Decatur taxes are comparable to Florida then they must also be comparable to any other state or jurisdiction.
On a national scale, we’re not all that high. The South in general has low property tax rates. It can get kind of absurd in some places. When I visited Gadsden, Ala., a city of 40,000, about 15 years ago, it had an all-volunteer fire department, despite having a large tire-retreading plant in the middle of town (I suspect the plant had its own firefighters). A fair number of streets, even in the most urbanized area, were gravel, and there were no sidewalks anywhere but in the center of town. There were few streetlights. The schools were abysmal. The sole attraction in town, a waterfall overlook, was dilapidated and overgrown. And there was no sewer system — just private septic fields, which meant the creeks were a hazard. But the city was proud that its property tax rate was among the lowest in Alabama. Bradenton, Fla., bucked the rest of the state for years, rolling back its property tax rates annually until they were, likewise, among the state’s lowest. Then the water treatment plant failed after years of deferred maintenance, and water had to be trucked in for a month until the state government took over the plant and made emergency repairs. Of course, the mayor responsible for the rollback regime got re-elected a short time later to his sixth or seventh term. On the other hand, as the NYT recently noted, even the most liberal of New Jersey residents are ready to take a knife to the state’s property tax rates, which the nation’s highest — something like double ours.
Yeah, being low compared to the northeast makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I could care less where we fall compared to another state. I know we have high taxes because we have a school system a police force, a real one and a fire department. Now all that is admirable and is a real function of government. It makes Decatur what we like, but we could cut employees. At one time we did not have a city engineer. If development is down, so should be that department. As well as inspections and zoning. Get the picture? Maybe we only need one administrator, after all we are a 4 square mile city. How many employees do we need? Think we have 10% too many, maybe 15%. Let’s find out, that is what most organizations do, cut till you can not handle the load, then you know the answer. That my friend is why productivity is so high. Everyone else is working.
We’d all be interested in hearing what positions you think are excess.