Tonight’s Community Academy Tackles the Decatur’s Residental Tax Burden
Decatur Metro | November 4, 2010
Decatur’s motto proudly boasts the berg as the “City of Homes, Schools and Places of Worship”.
Perhaps this phrase is an apt starting point for tonight’s Community Academy discussion taking place at the Holiday Inn Conference Center!
Why?
Well, in addition to making Decatur sound like a tranquil place to live – filled with educated youths and faithful congregations – it also (inadvertently) points out Decatur’s expensive student population and general lack of commercial space. (We don’t market ourselves as the City of Homes, Retirees, and Businesses!)
In fact, looking at the focus of our nifty primary colors logo through greenback-colored glasses, you might guess that Decatur has a residential tax burden that is “higher…than most anywhere else around”. And you’d be right, according to a recent post on the event over on Decatur Next!
If you look closely, this burden is embedded in many on-going discussions within our community. From annexation to density concerns to attracting more residents of the non-breeding persuasion, it all comes back to finding new ways of attracting additional businesses and retirees, who pay more in taxes than they get in return, and thereby easing everyone’s residential property taxes.
If you have ideas regarding this most important of Decatur issues, you might just want to show up tonight night and stun the mindful masses. Here’s what Decatur Next promises at the event…
During the meeting at the Holiday Inn Conference Center, participants will get hands-on with a city map, looking at each of our potential growth areas and determining what uses are most in line with their context and surrounding needs. There will then be discussion of what services and employment options are lacking in Decatur and how we might go about attracting them.
If you enjoy getting down to business, especially when it involves dealing with regional, national and global factors we have no control over, then this is the session for you.
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I couldn’t make it. Can anyone report?
It was informative and interesting. We were asked to participate by saying what percentage of residential, commercial, and business space we would like to see in Oakhurst, East Lake, East Decatur, and downtown Decatur. One standout figure for me: 92% of American businesses employ less than 10 people. The presenter’s point (if I understood her) was that any new businesses Decatur might attract are likely to be small, given the tectonic shift in the economy that is happening right now. This morning it occurred to me to wonder what proportion of the workforce that represents.
I believe a major reason our taxes are high is because of the large proportion of tax exempt properties in this town – especially in the most valuable property area, downtown.
See an earlier DM post for this:
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2010/06/09/the-largest-tax-exempt-property-owners-in-decatur/
Do you think, because of the dismal economy, these tax-exempt entities would offer to pay a share of the city taxes?
Agnes Scott College does a payment-in-lieu every year – don’t know about other places. They have their own police department also.
What does payment-in-lieu mean? Thanks.
It’s basically a cash payment offered as a means of saying “We know our exempt status is affording us a killer deal and we appreciate it. Here. Go get yourself something nice.”
Wow! That’s impressive of Agnes Scott. I knew I liked that school. I have to admit that I’ve never done that! E.g. I know that I could take more exemptions but I so believe in health care reform that I am going to give a little extra to the IRS this year….
Oh, by the way. When we were digging into the data related to annexation and trying to compare student/resident ratios inside Decatur vs. out, we were expecting to find that Decatur had an unusually high percentage of public school students in the population. Turns out the percentage was in keeping with, slightly lower actually than, the regional and national averages (which is what I could find from the US DOE). That’s surprising. I still find it hard to believe, and it may be changing. But it may be indirectly confirmed by the fact that our school tax burden is about the same as DeKalb County, as the Mayor pointed out during the annexation debate.
None of this means, of course, that it makes any less sense to get more commercial taxes (which means no TAD) and retirees, etc. But “our expensive student population” at least requires an asterisk, since they’re not the cause of our higher tax burden.
We all know of loads of families who have gone to private school for various reasons, some from the start so they prefer parochial or private school out of conviction, some after a few years in CSD, some at the 4/5 level, some at the RMS level. Sometimes they leave because of special needs or interests of their children, sometimes because of dissatisfaction, sometimes because of the cachet of private school. Some return at the DHS level. I have always wished that CSD would routinely do an exit interview, or at least an exit survey, of all families who start in CSD at some point and then leave. I think it would have useful information.
No TAD… can’t believe that passed to begin with.
Rather overwhelmingly, too.
If the ballot wording had given the remotest idea of what was actually being approved, who knows how the vote would have gone. That vote is no real indication of public support.
The general idea makes the hair on the back of my neck rise, too, and the City tax on my home has doubled in the past ten years. Nevertheless, I voted ‘yes’ for several reasons: (1) I don’t like the way the State bosses us around on stuff like that [but I do believe in lotsa Fed power in general--go figure], (2) all it does is give the City the option to ask us for a specific TAD down the road, which request I’m sure would elicit all of the scrutiny and debate that anything does, in Decatur, and (3) maybe a specific TAD could be a good thing–there seem to be so many variables that I’m reluctant to reject the whole notion out of hand.
We could always get more tax money by moving the DHA to non prime real estate,rather than tearing the buildings down and building them to look pretty much the same. It’s a great spot for retail or commercial office space. Of course this idea could spark rediculous arguments.
I do like that AS gives an in lieu of. However, I can’t say that I love paying $6-7000 per year in property taxes here, when my other house has 120 acres of land in rural Ga, and I pay less than $900. I will always support the first responders as I know a lot of our money goes there, but my god CSD takes a lot of money to run. Granted, I’m biased because I do not have nor will have children, so I just hate paying for thier education, but I’m just a scroogy bastard I suppose.
If you don’t pay for CSD school taxes, you will pay for DeKalb County school taxes. They are about the same. Did you go to private or public school as a kid?
both, I’m aware I have to pay either way, I assume dekalb’s taxes are cheaper but then again with corruption in Dekalb schools they may be higher so who knows.
Who paid for your public education?
DeKalb taxes are cheaper overall, but not the school portion. School taxes about the same; school systems not.