County board could use loophole
May borrow to buy other items
Local government doesn’t typically borrow cash to buy cars or computers. But that practice might represent the loophole helping Winnebago County avert drastic job and services cuts brought on by a strict state property tax freeze.
Money’s tight. And Winnebago County’s Board of Supervisors this week finds itself in a fix not unlike a cash-strapped homeowner. The tax levy freeze won’t allow new property taxes beyond what’s proposed in County Executive Mark Harris’ $153.9 million 2006 budget, relying on no more than $56.6 million in property taxes.
If supervisors want to restore anything on a list of proposed staff and service cuts, they’ll have to find some other funding sources, including borrowing and incurring debt and interest for traditionally direct-tax funded items.
http://www.wisinfo.com/northwestern/news/local/stories/local_23203847.shtml
This is bad policy that will actuall raise your property taxes more than no property tax freeze whatsoever.
It is allowable to increase your taxes to cover debt. Therefore, the county can borrow what itis not allowed to raise, then raise that amount in subsequent years - paying the cost of the item plus interest on the bond.
Just raising property taxes, or passing the sales tax to pay for the needed items up front will actually save the taxpayers money overall.
I agree with Mr. Harris once again:
He said he’d prefer exploiting the borrowing loophole to “eliminating people, but I don’t prefer it to sales tax.”
1 comment:
Funny how Mr. Harris avoided the question about how many actual people will lose their jobs in this budget. He was asked again last night and did not answer. Don't you think he owes the public a straight answer? It has gone down from 120 to 50 and word has it that the actual job loss due to the levy freeze (I use that word lightly because it is going up over 2%, not a freeze by my definition) is even lower.
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