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- School Levies are voted in:
The first question would renew an existing referendum, due to expire in 2005, increasing the general education revenue by $546.38 per pupil. The second question was to further increase general education revenue by an additional $252 per student. Both referendum would be applicable for another ten years and the spiral upward continues unabated. During the informational meetings in support of both levies examples of property tax increases were publicized indicating the amount of taxes needed to support each levy. Unfortunately, these examples were understated. During the Truth in Taxation meeting it was calculated that more taxes would be needed to support each increase. The question remains, was the voter's decision to approve the levies based on what they thought their tax increases would be or on the levy dollar amounts without regard to what the tax increases would be. We'll never know.
Ed. note: For many taxpayers, this continual need for more money has become trite or timeworn. Based on data of the last ten years, our academic outcomes have become mediocre regardless of how much 'money' we throw at the problem and its apparent that our educators don't have an answer to the problem or even can identify it. If any-one has a positive contribution I'm sure a school board member would be interested.
- Do Increased Property Values Mean Increased Taxes?
At a past council workshop I attended, all council members and then City Manager, Samantha Orduno, implied that property tax increases were attributable to increases in property values. In a letter to present council member Fred Wroge, dated 12-27-2004, a Richfield citizen demonstrated that increased property value, by itself, would have no effect property tax. Furthermore, this citizen stated several factors that could increase the tax from one year to the next might be 1) increases in the city levy (spending), 2) improvements to an individual property (which would increase taxes paid by that property and decrease taxes paid by all other properties), 3) differences in the percentage valuation increase, state dictated, for certain property classifications (e.g. Commercial, Apartment, Rental, etc.), 4) loss of property tax base due to loss of houses to/for streets, noise abatement and public acquisition of properties and, 5) the frozen valuations of tax increment financed districts which yield no increase in base valuation for term of the TIF district. In other words, increased property values don't raise property taxes; increased spending raises property taxes.
- Car Allowance Challenged by a Richfield Resident:
At it's February 24th 2004 meeting, the Richfield City Council unanimously formalized the city practice of a car allowance for our department heads ranging from $225-$400 per month. ($2700 - $4800 per year) According to Administrative Director Steve Devich, this long-standing practice, "built-into" the budget, replaced the need for using city vehicles which "sat dormant" much of the time. The writer questions why taxpayers are required to pay car allowances when there are no written records of the actual miles the department heads actually travel. He states: "Based on an IRS mileage allowance of 36 cents per mile, the value of these car allowances assumes department heads travel equates to 7,500 - 13,333 business miles per year or, said another way, the per mileage estimate of 31-55 miles per day." This equates to more miles per day than our city school buses, which travel estimated 45 miles per day. Our council should have a fiduciary responsibility to require records to support such discretionary spending.