We Failed (Ourselves)

Last night, the Commission had its first meeting to set the TRIM (ad valorem taxation rate).  The meeting was only to set a maximum for the coming year, and in the budgeting and taxation process, which will take about a month more, we can refine and lower from last night's maximum.  But if we come to think we guessed wrong, and the taxation rate should have been higher, we cannot go above whatever we agreed upon last night.

The maximum the Commission could have set last night was 10 mills.  That's $10 of tax per year for every $1000 of value of the property.  But the value is the assessed or taxable value, not the market value, and deductions are taken for homesteaded properties.  A realtor tells me my house has a market value in the mid $400Ks.  My taxable value last year was either $126K or $101K.  The School Board thinks I have a higher taxable value than do the other taxing agencies.

Our millage for last year was 9.7.  The question was what millage would we choose for the coming year.  We can choose any millage we want, as long as it's not higher than 10.

As a frame of reference, considering the taxable values of all taxable properties in the Village, 0.1 mills this year will be worth about $15K to the Village.  If we charged ourselves 0.1 mill more, or 9.8 mills, the Village would get $15K more in ad valorem taxes.  If we charged ourselves 0.1 mill less, or 9.6 mills, the Village would get $15K less.  It's harder to translate this into what property owners would pay, because property values are very different from one property to another, but the average difference 0.1 mill makes to BP property owners is about $15.  A tax of 9.8 mills would add about $15 to the average tax bill of BP property owners.  A tax of 9.6 mills would save the average BP property owner about $15.

That's not to say that the bill would be $15 different than it was last year for the average owner.  Because valuation changes even when the millage doesn't.  The "advantage" of the homestead exemption is that it prevents property taxes for people who rely on their homes to live in from experiencing extremes of tax increase, with changes in property values.  No matter how high and how fast property values increase for homesteaded properties, the taxable value can only increase a maximum of 3%.  But it can increase by that 3%.  So no one can hope that their tax will never go up.  It most certainly can.  If a homeowner is on such a tight budget that he cannot afford to pay more than he does in taxes, then he is an unfit property owner.  He might as well be able to afford to buy food, only on condition that the cost of food never changes.

Introductory comments last night, from non-Commissioner residents, Commissioners, and our Manager all mentioned responsibilities we are not currently meeting.  The millage the Manager proposed was 9.7, the same as it was for the year just ending now.  This proposal has no actual meaning.  It appears to suggest that taxes will be the same as they were last year, but this is not at all true.  With the increase in property values, and some impressive recent sales, at 9.7 mills, we will all be paying a higher tax than we did last year.  To pay the same tax as we did last year, or the average of us did, we would have had to tax ourselves at 8.7 mills.

But here's the problem.  Even at 9.7 mills, there is no provision for meaningful improvement of anything in the Village, and even not all normal and routine maintenance is covered.  If we tax ourselves at 9.7 mills, we collect more money than we did last year, and we still fall behind our normal daily responsibilities.  And again, there is no provision for improvement.

When I ran for office, my slogan was "For the Best We Can Be."  As a Commissioner, I have lived by that motto.  I still do.  It's engraved on a small plaque next to my name plaque on the Commission dais.  I paid extra to get that plaque, because I didn't want it overlooked that that's how I got where I am, and that's my mission for the Village.  The Best We Can Be.

My position last night was simple.  We cannot meet our responsibilities to ourselves as owners of this municipality if we charge ourselves 9.7 mills.  If we charge ourselves 10 mills, we still can't meet our responsibilities to ourselves.  But it's the most the Commission, on its limited authority, can do.  We cannot do all the maintenance we should, and we cannot do any real improvement.

But for last night, at the special Commission meeting, it was the best we could have done to make the Village The Best We Can Be.  The difference between 9.7 mills, which was the Manager's proposal, and 10 mills is not much.  It's only about $45K more to our Village.  And it would cost the average BP property owner about $45 more than he would otherwise pay.  In my case, last year, I paid a total ad valorem tax, to the County, the School Board, and the Village, of $3331.26.  I'm homesteaded, and it will go up 3% this year.  That's another $100.   What I proposed last night would cost me yet another $45.  So my $3331.26 would turn into about $3476.26.

Roxy Ross suggested a millage of 9.8.  She said she was ambitious, too, but not as daredevilish as I was.  David Coviello didn't want to raise the tax rate.  He wanted to keep the millage at 9.7.  Actually, he wished we could lower the tax rate, but he felt that this year was perhaps not the year..  (The tax goes up anyway, with property values and taxable value, so it wasn't clear what Dave thought he was accomplishing.)  Bob Anderson and Barbara Watts simply didn't want to raise the taxes.  Again, as with David Coviello, they seemed to ignore the fact that taxes go up anyway, unless we lower them considerably to the "fall-back" rate of 8.7 mills.  No one proposed doing that, although it wasn't clear why not, since David, Bob, and Barbara all didn't want to increase the tax burden on BP property owners.

We had an interesting investigation of what proportion of the Commission was needed to set a millage at 9.7.  According to a seemingly obscure State regulation, if we raise taxes by more than 10% of what they were in the preceding year (if we taxed ourselves at 9.7, this actually resulted in an ad valorem revenue of 110.89% of what it was last year, so 10.89% increase over last year), then a "supermajority" is needed to pass the new rate.  A supermajority on our Commission is four Commissioners.

I refused to vote for any tax below 10 mills.  Roxy Ross held firm at 9.8.  The other three could not pass 9.7 without either Roxy or me.  But the Manager and the Village attorney re-reviewed the Statute, once it was clear neither Roxy nor I would budge, and they re-interpreted it somehow to mean that a supermajority would not be needed to approve 9.7.  So that's what happened.  Coviello, Anderson, and Watts agreed to 9.7, and Ross and I voted against.

It's too bad it wasn't only Roxy and I who lost.  The whole Village lost.  Our big victory, a savings for the average property owner of either $15 or $45 for the year, deprived the Village of either $15K or $45K, money that could have gone toward things that any of us, and even any of the Commissioners, agreed was important.

Clearly, there was the usual pablum about sharpening pencils and finding the money somewhere else in the budget.  But the problem is that no matter what we do with the budget, and even if we charge ourselves 10 mills, we still fail to do what this municipality should do for itself.

Our "new" millage is truly a pyrrhic victory.