Letter to the Editor: Big plans push taxes beyond circuit breaker
I want to highlight the good work the Jasper Council is doing to balance the budget, but it also shows us something else. That like the county council has pointed out, local government spending has outpaced the tax revenue base. This is why the circuit breaker was tripped, because the city of Jasper has large sections of the city hitting their property tax cap. Why? Glad you asked.
The tax rate is made up of lots of different government entities. If you were to review your property tax bill, you have two rates.
1. The tax rate the governments want to place on you.
2. The tax rate the property tax caps allow.
The property tax caps are put into place to keep local governments from overtaxing their citizens. It is arguably one of the greatest amendments to our state constitution. But within Jasper we have many government entities seeking to raise point one knowing point two will not grow with it due to caps.
The Jasper City government budgeted spending is requiring a $900,000 cut in the annual budget, but they have plans to build a multi-million dollar arts building that will require Jasper City government to increase spending. Then you have the $4 million for the Parklands. Then the tax increment finance districts downtown. All this will push point one upward, but point two will not follow equally.
The Greater Jasper Consolidated School Corporation is seeking to build $30-plus million worth of new buildings, while still having tens of millions of long term debt to pay off. The school corporation is around 40 percent of the tax bill for Jasper citizens. This will cause their portion of point one to increase.
The library wants to build a new building and while they are very well run now, it will cause the tax rate from point one to increase as well. Additionally, this project removes land from the tax rolls making the rate increase higher than it normally would have.
I drive this home because nothing is free. The more money taken from us, the less we can use to actually grow the area as government doesn’t grow anything. Even as point one is driven up, point two will not follow up as fast and drive more people and businesses to hit the cap sooner rather than later. This will drive government debt levels up as basic infrastructure must be maintained. Worse yet, it could make politicians think they should raise taxes! Like we need that to happen…
You need to stay involved and make your voice heard. Call your representatives on councils and school boards. Vote in referendums. Show up to meetings. I am not saying any building is good or bad, just pointing the growing cost of everything the local government is seeking to do. This is your money, not theirs. Maybe you should say, or do something about it.
Adrian Engelberth
Jasper
