“Holdrege property tax levy drops on valuation strength” plus 3 more |
- Holdrege property tax levy drops on valuation strength
- Property tax won’t go up
- California Property Tax Rolls Shrink 1.8% in ‘Historic’ Slump
- Property tax rate declining
| Holdrege property tax levy drops on valuation strength Posted: 08 Sep 2010 12:03 PM PDT Posted: Wednesday, September 8, 2010 2:00 pm | Updated: 12:18 pm, Wed Sep 8, 2010. HOLDREGE — Holdrege's property tax levy will drop slightly from last year. Valuations are up 2 percent, and the city increased its tax request from $878,210 last year to $897,553 while dropping the tax levy to 40.5987 cents per $100 valuation. The city's valuation rose from $216 million last year to $221 million for the fiscal year 2010-2011. The council also approved the city's overall budget of $6.89 million, a 3½ percent increase from last year's $6.581 million. State statutes limit cities from exceeding their previous budget by more than 2½ percent, but with a supermajority, a City Council can exceed it by another 1 percent. On a unanimous vote by the seven members present, the Holdrege City Council approved the additional 1 percent increase. Council member Doug Simpson thanked City Administrator Bob Rager, Treasurer Mary Magill and the department managers for their work on the budget. "It's a lot of time, and it's a lot of numbers," Rager said. "It's not easy, and it gets tougher every year." In other business, the council approved routes for the Holdrege High School homecoming parade and the YMCA of the Prairie's triathlon. e-mail to: betsy.friedrich@kearneyhub.com More about HoldregePosted in Local on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 2:00 pm. Updated: 12:18 pm. | Tags: This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | ||||
| Posted: 08 Sep 2010 09:49 AM PDT Property tax won't go up By ANDREW THOMASON, The Daily News, athomason@bgdailynews.com/783-3242 Bowling Green property taxes won't be going up, at least if Tuesday night was any indication. Against the city chief financial officer's recommendation of an increase, the Bowling Green City Commission voted Tuesday to keep property taxes rates steady. During the first reading of the annual property tax rate ordinance, City Commissioner Bruce Wilkerson made a motion to drop the recommended 4 percent increase of $0.213 per $100 back to the current rate of $0.206 per $100. Jeff Meisel, the city's CFO, had proposed the increase. He said a 4 percent increase was the most the city could raise property taxes without the hike being subject to a voter recall. The city is required by law to lower property taxes when growth exceeds 4 percent. This creates a heavier reliance on the more volatile occupational tax when the city doesn't take the maximum property tax increase, Meisel said. As the economy has stumbled through the recession, the city has struggled to bring in enough taxes to cover expenses. Over the last four years, the city had to cut its budget to meet this reality. Regardless, the city commission voted unanimously to approve Wilkerson's motion. City Commissioner Brian "Slim" Nash said Meisel's argument carried weight but he couldn't justify raising taxes on people in the current economic climate. "I'm not critical of Mr. Meisel for making the recommendation that he did. I think it has merit," Nash said. "Asking people to pay one more tax, no matter how small it is, given the economic conditions, is just too much to ask right now." If Bowling Green residents are having to live with tighter budgets, then the city should as well, according to Wilkerson. Budgets need to meet revenue, not the other way around, he said. "I think the city needs to operate within its means, just like any household has to," Wilkerson added. There will be more money, about 1.6 percent more, coming into the city coffers because of natural growth, according to city estimates. However, the city will lose out on $2.9 million during the next 10 years by not raising property taxes this year, according to the same estimates. Ethics At least one citizen isn't happy with the Board of Ethics' ruling that City Commissioner Catherine Hamilton didn't violate the city's code of ethics earlier this year. Bob Talley was one of several who asked the board to determine whether Hamilton violated the code when she was caught performing lewd acts in Weldon Peete Park earlier this year. He spoke to the city commission at the start of the meeting, saying he was disappointed in the ethics panel's recent finding. "I really think the code of ethics needs to be redone or rewritten," Talley said. "It's reasonable that our elected officials be held at a higher standard." The board is discussing doing that. However, no city commissioner responded to Talley's request Tuesday night. When asked about Talley's comments afterward, Hamilton said she had no comment. Downtown Redevelopment Several votes taken by the city commission involving the downtown redevelopment district were split down what has become a familiar divide. The city commission voted 3-2 in favor of approving a subdeveloper agreement with Bowling Green Single-Purpose Entity II for the development of an area north of Western Kentucky University's campus. Hamilton, Nash and Wilkerson voted in favor of the agreement, and City Commissioner Joe Denning and Mayor Elaine Walker voted against it. The area is slated to have a hotel, a parking garage and a WKU alumni center. In conjunction with that, the city commission voted along the same lines to close 14th Avenue between Center and Kentucky streets. The road needs to be moved to accommodate the development, according to David Butler, of redevelopment district master developer Alliance Corp. The city still owes about $175,000 on the block, and is asking Glasgow-based Alliance Corp. to either rebuild the road itself or pay the city the cost to rebuild it. City Clerk and Interim Public Works Director Katie Schaller said the current road will remain open until Alliance Corp. and the Warren County Downtown Economic Development Authority, which is in charge of the redevelopment district, approve the closure agreement. The city commission voted 3-2 against appointing Emily Perkin Sharp to replace Chuck Coates on the development authority board. Coates resigned the volunteer position in August to pursue other things. Hamilton, Nash and Wilkerson voted against Sharp, and City Commissioner Joe Denning and Mayor Elaine Walker voted in favor. Walker said she thinks some of the commissioners don't want someone on board who asks questions. She said she will come back next meeting with another appointee. You must register with a valid email to post comments. Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
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| California Property Tax Rolls Shrink 1.8% in ‘Historic’ Slump Posted: 07 Sep 2010 09:15 PM PDT September 08, 2010, 12:02 AM EDT By Christopher Palmeri Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) -- California property values fell 1.8 percent for the current fiscal year, only the second drop since the most-populous U.S. state began collecting the data in 1933. Declines in 48 of the state's 58 counties brought the total value to $4.37 trillion, according to the California Board of Equalization, which monitors tax collections. The previous drop was a year earlier, when the total sank 2.4 percent to $4.45 trillion, the California Assessors' Association said. "This is historic," Larry Stone, the assessor for Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County, said yesterday in a telephone interview. "This is not your normal downturn." In January assessments, most California property values were adjusted down by 0.237 percent to reflect deflation, the state board said. The adjustment was the first to lower property tax bills because of a formula put in place by Proposition 13, a 1978 referendum that capped property-tax increases. State law requires assessors to lower values during market downturns, Stone said. In his county, assessments declined on 118,000 homes as a result. Property values fell 1.8 percent to $1.06 trillion in Los Angeles County and 0.5 percent to $421.2 billion in Orange County, the two with the largest property rolls, state data show. Assessments declined on almost 70 percent of residences reviewed in Los Angeles County, Assessor Robert Quon said last month in a statement explaining the drop. San Francisco Gains In San Francisco County and Kern County, an oil-producing region in central California, values increased more than 4 percent. San Francisco property values rose 4.3 percent to $158.5 billion, according to state records. Stone said the highest jobless rate in 50 years drove down Santa Clara County property, calling it "the worst economic decline since the Great Depression." Assessed values fell 21 percent in 1978, when passage of Proposition 13 caused a reevaluation of all California real estate. Tax rolls fell 2.4 percent to $296 billion in Santa Clara last year, according to the county's 2010 annual report. In 2001, at the apex of the Internet boom, values rose 16 percent. In Mono County, lake country near the Sierra Nevada range, property values fell 7 percent, the state said. "We have a lot of second homes," Mono County Assessor Jody Henning said in a telephone interview. "They are the first to go." --Editors: Ted Bunker, Walid el-Gabry. To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php | ||||
| Posted: 07 Sep 2010 09:59 PM PDT SKOWHEGAN By Doug Harlow dharlow@mainetoday.com SKOWHEGAN -- Tax bills should arrive this week with a little good news, the town manager said Tuesday -- a slight drop in the tax rate. Bills were sent Aug. 30, showing a drop from last year's rate of $15.54 for every $1,000 in property valuation to this year's $15.50, Town Manager John Doucette Jr. said. It may not seem like much, Doucette said, but it reflects work earlier this year by town officials and school board members who pledged that budgets would not increase. The budget process was made more difficult, he said, because the town received about $700,000 less in revenue from the state. He said the tax rate itself does not reflect any adjustments in property valuations in various parts of town. Tax bills that are arriving are for the entire year, he said, but can be split -- taxpayers can pay half in September and half in March. Doucette said services so far are not suffering, but it is just a matter of time before money is going to have to be raised for things such as equipment and roads. "The future, as far as replacement of equipment -- equipment is getting older and older and older, and the roads aren't getting any better," he said. "You can keep it down for just so long. Then it comes to a fact where you're going to rob Peter to pay Paul, as long as the revenues keep going down; and I don't see that getting any better." This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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