(continued) Return to Utah Wingmen for Tax RE-Forum
has 15 taxing entities on her tax notice. She was facing all of them raising their taxes potentially just adding more and more to our tax burdens. She wanted it to stop. She pointed out the Bond issue we are paying for and suggested it was “extortion” to expect us to continue paying for more than the windfall revenues, plus the Bond passed several years ago and which will continue “for a long time”. She was frustrated that they were getting impact fees and new growth, plus the “windfalls” from the over assessments. She said that should be more than enough without any tax increases.
A confusing explanation of impact fees followed by Chief Austin, who said they get impact fees set by State Code 11-36-202 (Law). There is some wiggle room but basically the Fire District can not exceed actual costs. So they are more like refunds for expenditures than actual impact fees. It was later explained that the legislators (many of whom are realtor and developers) have passed legislation which limits Fire Districts and what they can legally charge as impact fees to developers. Also, that proposed legislation for this session will make it even worse by putting a 90 day delay in place, which will basically enable developers’ time to obfuscate, research and fend off any impact fees. Chief Austin stressed that the fee schedules are being used to retire Bond debt each year and they hope to continue to retire the debt and pay it off early saving more interest money.
I rose to speak, thanked everyone for their service and began to probe the actual 2008 Budget. Explained Kay and I are paying about $362 and if the increase goes through it will increase to $533 a year to the Fire District and Bond service. This “only $5.33 a household stuff” is irrelevant and the way “incrementalism” is sold on everything by every taxing entity. We are being overwhelmed by these “only $5.33” increases which are much more in truth. One of the Board members had previously correctly surmised that Valley property was much more than the County average residence of only $265K. Probably the Real Estate guy.
I turned and asked everyone in the room, “If you are seeing a 16.5% increase in your annual income, please stand.” No one did. I then asked for everyone getting an 8.8% raise or COLA increase to please stand. Again, the small crowd sat without standing.
I explained even an 8.8% tax increase is about four times the rate of inflation this year at about 2.33%. And no one except, ALL of the Weber County employees, is getting that high an increase (2% merit raise, 2% COLA increase, and a 5.1% benefits package increase…total 9.1%).
Carefully I explained, Mitt Romney cut the Olympic Budget by hundreds of millions of dollars by simply having the Board submit: absolute requirements; “must haves” but “could do without”; and “nice to haves”. He sent them back two or three times until they cut back to “absolute requirements”. I asked the Board to back off, understanding how Ogden Valley, if not the entire County had been raped by the County Assessor’s office and the County Commissioners. I requested the Board to meet again to pare down budget items to the bare bones leaving no fat. They should be looking at no more than a 2 or 2.5% increase in their budget for 2008, if anything at all. This increase would be coming from the excess in revenues, already coming their way, from the last round of property taxes due to windfalls.
Lastly, I asked about the budgetary numbers “which jumped out at me” like Safety from $20K to suddenly $187K? (Chief Austin explained grants mostly to upgrade equipment - helmets, masks, air compressors, and the like). I questioned Building/Ground maintenance which jumped from $31K to $310K? (Again Chief Austin explained this is FEMA Grant money used to upgrade the three older building’s sprinkler systems). Salaries and Wages jumped from $3.027 Million in ‘07 to $3,848 Million in ‘08? Why the more than $820K increase? (Chief Austin explained in addition to the three (3) new fire fighters they hired this year, they plan to hire an additional six (6) in ‘08). Presumably to man the additional fire stations built last/this year. With only about ten minutes to digest and analyze about 15 pages of Budget, I had no further questions.
My request was repeated they do what Mr. Allen had suggested and “back off”. Spend another day or two thinking about each item in the budget and perform a “Romney act” on it, cutting it down to bare bones.
All on the Board and in uniform were gregarious and non confrontational, which made it much easier to object without being objectionable. It was easy to confront without being confrontational. It was an amicable meeting in general.
Two more ladies; Jody Smith, from Eden and Judy Culley of Liberty, rose to speak bravely in logical and sometimes emotional intonations and through almost tears, made pleas that our taxes not be increased. They pointed out how it was not right to continue to increase our tax burdens. They were joined by Kelly Wangsgard from Huntsville, who also rose to speak of his own situation and the impacts these constant tax increases were having on him and the families in the Valley.
Kay and I sat through another session on the Resolution 2007-2 to approve a new District Fee schedule (proceeds are used for Bond debt service). There was also a general discussion of the resolution prescribing a policy for impact fees for: public safety facilities; adopting a capital facilities plan; and establishing a service area to equitably distribute the public safety impact fees.
We left after a short break, where I learned how our Valley’s own serve on the Board -Allen Clapperton, Huntsville, and Dennis Montgomery and John Kimball both from Eden. It was my suggestion, the next such meeting should probably be held beginning at 7pm to allow people to get off work and attend. It should also be held earlier in the year perhaps in early November, given the Christmas crunch. It would do much for public confidence and negate an impression that some manipulating might be going on, when it is not.
And as an after thought, all the information should also be clearly posted online for public scrutiny and study during the two weeks prior to the meeting, as the Utah Code requires. Such openness would also go a very long way toward public confidence, especially after the treatment given by the three Weber County Commissioners and Assessor (which many on the Board seemed to agree had done a particularly bad job of this year in particular).
Finally, I have no idea what if anything they will do about this budget. But I highly suspect nothing much given the time of year and the season rush toward Christmas. But at least some of us tried from the Valley while the other one-third of the County sat on their collective duffs. It is a start at becoming involved and making a difference…in community service, and for that I was proud to know that those who responded and speak out, spoke for all of us. Thank you Lyle, Sandra, Jody, Judy, and Kelly. And also thanks to Allan C., Dennis M. and John K. for your volunteer service on the Fire District Board.
Minor Machman
