MM: Senior Exemption Cost on CSD, Spring Break!, and Architecture on the Brain
Decatur Metro | April 4, 2016 | 9:09 am
- Senior exemptions could cost Decatur schools $2 million [AJC]
- Decatur students Spring break plans [3ten]
- Alcohol license for Highland Bakery on City Commission agenda [Decaturish]
- First look at Old Fourth Distillery’s second facility on Decatur Street in ATL [ABC]
- Metro Atlanta schools out for spring break, lighter traffic expected [AJC]
- What Architecture Is Doing to Your Brain [CityLab]
Future home of Old Fourth Ward Distillery 2nd location courtesy of Google Streetview
The headline and lede of that AJC article make it sound like the pending senior exemption’s gonna cost the schools $2 million but then, once you read into it, it specifies that its actual cost to the system is more like $750,000. Not a small sum but one seemingly similar to the anticipated net school revenue expected from downtown projects currently coming online or on the books. Could it be that this thing might pencil out without shifting any burden to single family homes? That’d be awesome but it almost seems too easy.
I can’t help but point out that this should not be categorized as a shifting or a wash. If the tax digest increases by $750,000.00, that savings should be passed onto taxpayers in the form of lower taxes (or alternatively, those funds could be used by the schools for programs that are currently un or under-funded). Even if our tax bills don’t go up, this will result in a tax increase on non-seniors (perhaps approved by voters, but still a tax increase).
But “should” by whose definition? Because there are surely others who might say, “It’s the city’s job to foster growth in the tax digest so that we might further other goals that we as a community have established — such as keeping seniors in the community or walkability or whatever else from the Strategic Plan.”
I’m not saying that growth of the tax digest *shouldn’t* be returned to taxpayers or directed into existing, potentially underfunded programs. Just that those aren’t the only options. Presumably what happens at the ballot box this November will shed some light on which option matters most to the community overall. To be honest, I’m not all that sure at this point just how it’s gonna play out.
Not disagreeing with anything in your post, but your original post implied something to the effect of “It’s not costing us anything, so why not?” This measure will cost us something – either lower taxes or loss in revenue for CSD. I still haven’t decided how will I vote, but I fully understand that supporting this bill will cost me something.
Yeah, definitely didn’t mean to imply that. What I was really trying to suggest is that what’s happening seems to display a far greater level of strategic convergence than the more typical abstract wish-list approach found in no shortage of other places, and that that’s given us more options to choose from. Which, wherever one sits on the issue, is a good position to be in.
Why don’t they also give us the figures of what it would cost for all the additional kids that would fill the homes of those 65+. Every 65+ that moves out will be filled with more kids. As I saw it presented previously, there is a savings of giving the seniors a break vs. paying X amount for each additional child in the system.
Speaking as one who is over 65, even if we are given a tax break it is only for a few years then we will have to move for health care reasons or we will die. That’s sort of how it works. Our houses will still sell and the school system will still get the additional kids that will fill our properties – you just get the new kids down the road and short the tax dollars we over 65s would have paid. We WILL move out some time in the future. Now if you could pass a bill that would fix that…..
May I ask why you feel that you must move at some point? We are making sure that our home is as accessible as possible but wonder what we might not be thinking about that makes you feel that you could not stay in your home.
Iteral, you need to get more literal. Greybeard (and I) will move eventually, even if it is just to that great nursing home in the sky.
A delay in seniors moving out is a plus. It’s too many seniors leaving at once–leading to too many young families flooding CSD at once–that is an issue. It’s okay for seniors to slowly age out (to senior living or relatives) or die out (alas) because meanwhile young families are slowly aging out of CSD (eventually to college and jobs). It’s too many young children at once that is hard for CSD to absorb.
Plus it’s just plain enjoyable to have a mix of folks in a community, old and young, elite and ordinary, introverts and extroverts, consumers and sellers, male and female, etc., etc., etc.
The AJC piece is inflammatory without much basis in fact. First, the number of new apartments, condos and size of the new homes increase the amount of taxes the schools will receive. This is far outweighted by the few seniors left in each residential street. Those seniors in apartments continue to pay which will match and exceed those funds lost. Take a count of the neighbors still on your street home residents and see how few are still around.
These taxes are the reason. Many folks have paid 15-20-30+ years to educate Decatur students. Have you?
why does the number of years i’ve paid school taxes in decatur matter in this equation?
Re “Metro Atlanta schools out for spring break, lighter traffic expected [AJC]”: not so on my commute home this evening Felt more like pre-Christmas traffic.
Braves opening day traffic probably.