Property Taxes

Ok, tomorrow (Tuesday night at 530) we have a public hearing on raising the property taxes in Gonzales. There will be a second hearing at the regularly scheduled council meeting September 6th.

Now I want to make this clear, I don't want to misrepresent the situation at hand.  At the last council meeting Councilman Logan made the motion to keep the rate of our taxes the same as they were last year.  Per state law though this is actually an increase because of the increase in property values, and as such they must have these public hearings and vote on it as an increase in our tax rates.  It is not because they have increased the percentage of taxation on the value of our homes.

In order to keep the amount of taxation the same, the council must (and still could) vote to have the effective tax rate put in place where the percentage would go down, but our individual taxes would be about the same. 

So here we go, and I actually have 2 trains of thought here, one of them probably not as popular as the other one. 

First to keep the tax rate the same will increase taxes by $21,000 for the city of Gonzales.  To quote our Interim City Manager, "This won't even buy a new vehicle for the city".  Now he was trying to say how little this was, and I'm going to tell you for all it's worth it's not even enough to purchase a new vehicle, so way are we wasting our time and money going through all this effort?

Additionally, and more importantly, if we wanted  $21,000 all we would of had to do is cancel any one of the council meetings over the last 6 months.  In that time they have added to our already 1.5 million dollar deficit at the rate of about $100,000 a meeting.  We've added to the airport (don't you use it?), we've paid study after study after study and consultant after consultant that in my personal opinion could have waited till we till we have recuperated from the debacle of our previous management. Even on tomorrows agenda there are what appear to be unbudgeted items. 

I always thought that's what we had a budget process for, you budget, you work the budget, and unless it's an EMERGENCY then you work towards next years budget to get the new stuff added.  I haven't seen anything that was an EMERGENCY at any of the meetings I've attended (which is a vast majority of them).  Why bother putting together a budget if we're not going to follow it?

Additionally I keep hearing about all this oil money, and yet our income actual vs budget was down by 3% last time I looked, meaning we're 3% shy of what we were anticipating receiving in funds for the city this year for this time period.  In addition to that we were over budget in spending, in no small part to JB Wells excessive over budget spending YTD.  So we're not getting as much as we hoped, and we're spending more than we said we would.  Surprise!

So to be very clear, I'm in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM in favor of the proposed tax rate the way it is laid out right now.


Now comes the part I'm sure a few more will not agree with.  I'm not all together opposed to a tax increase.  I don't think economically it's really the time, but here's what I told one of our council members. 

If the council would come up with a real plan for road and infrastructure improvements, and say we have a 5 year plan, I would be ok with a real tax increase as long as they would decrease the taxes at the end of that 5 years. 

I've seen it done in San Antonio, and it can work!  BUT and I mean BUT that has to be a set in stone, the money from that increase goes to specific projects that we the people have approved, and at the end of the time period the increase has got to drop back down and the city not count on any of that money in the future.  Way to often a council will come up with any excuse to keep the taxes up, but that can not happen! This can not become another "vote for the lottery to pay for our schools" slogan either.  This has to be very specific what these monies would be raised for and when they were the taxes would go away. 

But if those conditions would be met and our infrastructure was the target of the needed money I would be in support. 

But I promise you that the $20,000 that our council is dealing with is a waste of the public hearings and nothing more than a game someone is playing.  Let your councilman know that you expect him to vote for the "effective rate" in 2 weeks. That there is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE to vote for the rate as it's proposed right now.  How about make a trip to one of the 2 city council meetings and speak up for yourself?  Tomorrow at 5:30 or next Tuesday at 6. 

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser