Trending
Larry Bellew
Minot
Is it time for Measure 2 to come back? In case we forget, Measure 2 was on the ballot several years ago. If it would have passed, property taxes would have been eliminated.
You might ask yourself, "Why is he bringing this up?" I bring this up because it is property tax time again and I am very concerned for our Minot and Ward County residents. Our local political subs, which are Ward County, Minot Public Schools, Minot Park District, and the City of Minot, are working on their 2018 budgets. Once again, our local elected officials, per their preliminary budgets, are looking at raising our property taxes around 60 mills. This means that your property tax and mine will increase roughly 21 percent over last year. An example is that the owner of a $200,000 home in Minot will see their property tax increase by about $535 per year and more for higher valued houses. This does not include the City's raising the monthly sewer fee by $3.
A question arises, how much will they raise it next year and the year after? People call and are concerned. What do I tell the retired couple who are living on a fixed income when they ask what can be done about the property tax situation? What will they have to give up to pay for the increase in taxes: food, medicine, time with their grandkids, or maybe their home?
Our elected officials constantly say they need more money to pay for services. I have never heard the word "downsize" from any of our local elected officials. I believe that the reason for this is it's not their money, so they don't seem to care if they spend more, and if the money runs out, they just raise our taxes!
In the business world, if a company is not making a profit to cover overhead, the company makes necessary cuts to balance the budget. We also do this as financially responsible citizens. This never seems to happen in government, because they are the overhead.
This means that they do not do anything to produce income. Their source of income comes from you and me, the property owner. It seems that the local governments create their own kingdoms and force taxes on the people to expand their kingdom.
Examples of this are Ward County and the City of Minot. In the past 10 years Ward County's budget, has increased from $18 million to $54 million, an increase of 271 percent. Their tax levy has increased from $8.8 million to about $22 million, an increase of 250 percent.
Minot's budget has increased from $57 million to $144 million, an increase of 254 percent. Their tax levy has increased from $10 million to $23 million, an increase of 224 percent. It only increased 224 percent because part of the city's sales tax is used for property tax relief.
I do not have the budget information for the public school district but I would guess their increases are just as staggering.
With these huge increases, something is wrong when a city official says that "we don't have an expense problem, we have a revenue problem." Is this not arrogant to make such a statement? Can our citizens continue to afford to pay these taxes or are we chasing them away?
Based on my research, Ward County, the City of Minot, and the Minot School District could be the poster children as to why property taxes should be eliminated. Perhaps it is time for our local governments to adjust their budgets instead of making the property owners adjust their budgets.