Okay, I have so many questions. The Cat’s name is ? Is that you, John? …. nice hat! Man, you are really stepping it up. How do you know TR …. Bowden must be so flattered. How are we going to get this county to keep up with such a great online paper? I see good things coming …. please, please…organic farms, music venues, eco-tourism ….wow, okay, I’ll cool it. A blog! yes! Thx, John!

The cat’s name is DOT. I’ll post an entry, sharing how I came upon her and how she earned her name …

And yes that is me … And the whole website is a blog ;)

She’s a beauty John!
Oh, boy, one day after Christmas and my dander’s up. Just got through reading an article where Scanlon says: (my summary) real estate evaluations/rates are not going to change because we cannot cut the budget much further without raising the money from some other pocket. My problem is not with the RE evaluations … today… but the budget. Maybe when it comes time for a new budget (??) the county folk could get a real good idea where the $$ are going and make some suggestions for cutting. It’s obvious that the county manager cannot see the trees for the forest (gee where did I just read that sort-of phrase?) and he needs some help. Happy, happy, joy, joy …I’m trying!

Loneduck …

The problem is that the three are tied together:

valuations - tax rate - budget

in a triangular fashion.

Per Scanlon’s presentation, the budget is based largely on ad valorem tax : which comes from tax valuations.

So when you lower the valuations, you lower the amount of ad valorem tax coming in and thus you have to a) come up with money from somewhere else or b)cut budgeted items or c) a combination of both.

Cutting budgeted items means cutting spending in some manner: firing people; cutting programs; cutting material purchases.

Cuts are even more difficult when other revenue sources: transfer tax; sales tax and to a lesser degree occupancy tax are slipping.

Add to this that we are half way through the fiscal budget year (July - June)

The harsh reality is that if the valuations could be cut, a) the ad valorem tax rate must be raised b) other revenue sources must be found.

The question that shoud be asked is: at the next valuation, what is t he likelihood that the values will fall back? If so, what effect does this have on the tax rate? no one wants to be the one to raise taxes, but the reality is that the money has to come from somewhere.

-John

Like I said, I’m not pushing for revals, I am after a valid budget in a lower tax receivables environ. I point to the numbers that were printed when Bowden retired … they were numbers that Bowden presented. From 1976 to today the county population went from 8500 to 23000. Let’s say three fold. 40 folks in admin went to 400 today; 9 in the sheriffs office and 117 today; budget of 3 mil to budget of 63 mil. I say there is some room in there when the population grows by not quite 3 and all the support grows by 10 or more. I don’t hold to the idea that we have to keep finding taxing sources so we can keep on doing the same things. Maybe we need to review what we are doing. Just sayin’.