By ARCritic
Back in the November election Weber County residents voted to allow the consolidated dispatch center to become an independent taxing entity and levy a property tax to fund themselves. This is outside of the county and cities that had been previuosly supporting it. The cities of Weber county all supported the creation of the taxing authority and promised to lower their taxes by what the new tax the dispatch center proposed.
Now that all the cities have adopted their tentative budgets, I have not heard word one from the Standard about how all these cities are proposing significant property tax cuts. The center was proposing something like a 0.00036 tax rate. This would be little less than a 10% rate reduction that Ogden City would have to propose and since all other cities have lower rates than Ogden, their rate reductions would all be higher.
I would think budgets that included that sizable of Property tax rate reductions would be BIG NEWS. So what gives?
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Editorial note: This thoughful query was submitted to us by one of our long-time gentle readers, for which we offer our thanks. Where, exactly are our promised tax reductions anyway?
A tip o' the hat to gentle reader ARCritic for reminding us of this issue.
We think this is something that ought not fall "between the cracks."
It's a 10+% tax reduction we're talking about here.
Comments, anyone?
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28 comments:
The property tax cut has already happened in Ogden. If you look at the proposed budget, the property tax revenue dropped by exactly the amount that was promised by the city related to the dispatch center. Sorry--no controversy here--at least for Ogden City.
A big chunk of it went to make up the short falls caused by various RDA TIF set asides, Ogden City being the main offender who has a detremental effect on the whole county.
What do you expect from Republicans. Their good at saying one thing and doing another.
Besides the poor business men need a government handout. This is how the Republicans funnel tax money into their campaigns.
The Mayor did lower taxes? but did he? He just raised fees in other areas, and claims he against taxes.
FEES ARE STILL A TAX,,,,,, NO MATTER HOW YOU PAY IT!!!!!!!!!!
Mayor Goffey lowers the taxes, and then raises the water rates by 13.4 %, no new taxes? Just hidden fees. Let's build a Gondola, let's build a Rec. Center, let's add 2 floors to a building, where the hell does all the money go and come from? The Little Lord's monopoly (Ogden Tax Payers contribution to the ponzi scheme).
Ogden City's Comptroller was very diligent and made sure that Ogden taxpayers were not double taxed for the consolidated dispatch center. He did remove it from Ogden's taxes.
Most of the Department Heads have made some deep cuts in their budgets short of laying employees off. The two entities that didn't make any cuts and are asking for a considerable increases are the Mayor's office and the Council who each added a new employee, accounting for most of the increase. So far the Council has been hearing from all the departments as they present their budgets and justify them in their work meetings. They haven't had a chance to have any input on the budget yet. Hopefully we'll see some changes.
Mr. Huntsman,
What revenue line item in the N. Ogden City budget is going to cover the record high costs your city has to pay for utility, fuel, and natural gas increases you have to pay? You also forgot to mention the state capped the levels the cities can receive from some of these so-called windfalls so they aren't as high as some would assume. Stop pandering and give all the facts.
Ozboy,
What is an "RDA TIF set aside?" Can you give a specific example of any? Even 1? I will be watching to see if you can.
(Hint to everyone else: Ozboy will stumble on this one)
On the same topic, but more generally: some of the rhetoric on this matter seems to assume that all tax increases are unjustified and that all fee increases are as well. That makes very little sense.
Governments [at all levels] have responsibilities and provide services, services that in most cases citizens have asked, if not demanded, be provided. Doing that costs money. And the costs rise with inflation, just as costs do for all of us. Or the legislature makes a tax changes that reduces municipal income. Or a population surge creates new demands for services as yet unfunded. Or... well, you get the idea. To assume, as some seem to, that any and all increases in taxes or fees are unjustified and some kind of rip-off of the public seems to me to be a wholly unrealistic attitude to take.
As unrealistic as assuming that all tax or fee increases or new expenditures of public funds are good ideas. As a rule, some are, some aren't.
A parallel to the unrealistic idea summarized above sometimes appears in letters to the editor. It runs something like this: "I won't pay one dime more in taxes until every dollar of wasteful spending and inefficieny is removed from my city/county/state/national government [pick one] first!" Well, that's just plain silly. NO business, no institution of any sort, much less a government, operates on 100% efficiency. None ever has, none ever will. Of course we all ought to work constantly to make government more efficient than it is [just as stock holders have an interest in making their company more efficient than it is], but to demand no waste ever is to demand the impossible: 100% efficiency. It does not exist. It never has.
As for the specific tax reduction we are talking about here: any time municipalities can devise ways to cut expenditures while not reducing services [in this case by cooperation to provide the service on a regional rather than local basis], it's a good idea for them to do so. Whether the resulting savings are returned to the people via a tax cut, or allocated elsewhere in no way diminishes the wisdom of having made the savings by consolidation of services in the first place.
What to do with the money saved is a political question, and the ballot box is where, periodically, we [the voting public] tell office holders how wisely they've been making decisions like that. As a long-time Davis County commissioner learned to his sorrow I gather at the recent Davis County Republican convention.
But if the Ogden City Council decides it needs to raise fees or taxes someplace else while lowering the specific tax they promised to lower by consolidating emergency services, that does not mean they will have broken faith with the voters. To argue otherwise is, I think, to vastly oversimply the matter of public administration, expenditures and revenues.
I just found your blog. May I link it?
Curm - what you have said is very true. However, I think the problem people have is that we are told the taxes did not increase but at the same time, fees did! This is disengenuous. My personal belief is that ANY source of income for a govenment entity (whether justified or not) is a TAX. I'm sure you know the old saying - "You can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig." To leave a tax at the same level (or even to lower it) while at the same time INcreasing fees, is, well - an increase!
Armysarge:
I was going to argue that there was a fundamental difference between a tax and a fee, that being that a tax falls on all, whether they use the service a tax funds or not, while a fee is paid only by those who use a particular service to which the fee is attached.
Happily, before I did that, I remembered filling up my car last week, and noticing the not-insignificant gas tax I paid at the time. Which, manifestly, falls only on those who gas up and not at all on those who do not drive. And the distinction between a tax and a fee I thought had been so clear moments before began to disolve rapidly. Want to think on it a little more, but right now, I don't think I want to be the one on the platform at a debate defending the notion that taxes and fees [imposed by governments] are fundamentally different things....
Curm - I have thought along the same lines as you but I really feel that, when the smoke clears, MOST people pay BOTH (tax and fee) in MOST cases. For example, the franchise "fee" on our cable bill every month is, in fact, a tax. We USED to pay TAX to license our cars - now we pay a FEE. Fees are much easier to raise than taxes.
ArmySarge:
If there was an emoticon signifying "in full retreat on this," I'd post it here now.
Steve Huntsman said:
For those interested; N.Ogden council is definitely going to reduce our city property tax rate by the 0.00036 because the consolidated 911 dispatch center is adding this same percent to the state property tax rate.
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The city does not want anyone to focus on the fact that N. Ogden council is also voting a simultaneous raise in the certified property tax rate for our city to cover other “operational needs,” we are also raising the monthly utility sewer, garbage, and storm sewer fees (fee or tax? are not both in use by monopoly), we are also raising building permit fees and plan check fees, water impact fees, park impact fees, sanitary sewer impact fees, storm water impact fees and proposing a one time property tax hike to cover a Q-west underpayment.
So is the certified tax rate in N. Ogden going up or down? And by how much?
Crum,
There is one thing about the consolidation that is a problem for me, and why I was not a big supporter of giving them taxing authority. That is that a group of elected and appointed officials now governs the dispatch center. These elected officials are not directly responsible to ALL of the taxpayers that they can levy a tax on. They are only resposible to their own county/city/town 's voters. This is similar to the Central Weber Sewer district and the Weber Basin Water district. Their tax rates are set by their board none of whom are directly elected by ALL or maybe even a majority of those whose property is going to taxed.
And I will be interested to see what happens to the certified tax rate in each city. It would seem that Steve has told us that N. Ogden is raising taxes but because of the reduction for the Dispatch Center the overall rate may not go up so they will be able to raise taxes without going through a truth in taxation hearing.
anonymous,
I commend Ogden City for that. Now what amount of money is the dispatch center going to collect from Ogden tax payers and how does that compare to the 830,000 that the city will be reducing their taxes by?
Arcritic,
The reduction by the city is the same as the increase by the dispatch center. It is a wash. That was the agreement from the "get-go."
To one of our many Anonymous's:
Perhaps you do not know what TIF and RDA means? Seems to me that if you did, you would not ask this question - you know, the one I am sure to fail on.
There are numerous examples all about us. Ogden is the worst offender in Utah, but they are certainly not alone in their abuse of the RDA laws.
One blatant example I will give you: Try the $2.5 million dollar TIF deal that the Ogden RDA dealt to Kemp out at the Ogden airport. This was sort of a "retro-active" gift to Kemp's project that had already been build without any RDA involvement. Otherwise it was already an improved property on the tax rolls before this TIF gift, which incidently is deteremental to all Weber county tax payers althought it was an Ogden deal.
Maybe you ought to bone up on the subject, look at Ogden's RDA history, and answer your own question.
Anon,
I ask the question because when I do the math for my city I project that the dispatch center should collect about 130K from my city while last year we payed about 90K to the center. My Mayor assures me that had we not gone with the tax vote that our assessment would have gone to 130K so it is a wash. I was told one of the reasons that the tax method of funding it was proposed was because some cities were not happy with the formula that was in place to assess the cities. Some felt they paid to much and others were getting a free ride. By going with the tax it would be "fair" because all property owners would be paying the same tax rate.
That is why I ask if the numbers are equal. If you take the rate that the dispatch center is going to use and divide it by your city's rate last year then multiply by your city's property tax collected or budgeted for this year and you get a number for what the dispatch center will collect from your city. Then compare that with what you paid them this year.
Ozboy,
In the case you cite at the airport, the TIF revenue actually flows through to Adam’s Aircraft. You response implies that having Adams’ Aircraft is detrimental to the county. That’s a unique perspective you have there. Who else is detrimental? Williams? Autoliv? Fresenious? Should we run all of these other beneficiaries of TIF financing out of Ogden? Who would be left paying property taxes, income taxes, and utility taxes in Ogden? If your definition of a set-aside is TIF payments on new, future property taxes, I guess we have a different understanding of set-asides. The payments of TIF are generated through new buildings (Mall, Hampton Inn) or new projects (Adams, Fresenious) that never would have existed had it not been for the TIF payments available. How can the county, city or anyone else be hurt by something that would not exist had it not been for the TIF available in the first place?
It’s true that the Kemp Building existed before the TIF was granted, but the TIF in that project is channeled to Adams Aircraft that would NOT have existed without the TIF payments.
Now I will give you another challenge: You state that Ogden is an “offender” and “abuser” of RDA laws. If these businesses and entities are coming to Ogden by virtue of the RDA Laws, how is that considered abuse? RDA stands for….steady yourself now…Redevelopment Authority. If the city isn’t supposed to redevelop itself through new economic growth and expand the tax base through RDA actions, what is the RDA supposed to do?
Rather than spout accusations, try to specify what State Laws have been broken in our city.
RDA stands for Redevelopment Agency (not Authority). Had to double-check. Sorry, my bad.
Mr. Anonymous:
I don't know how many of you are using this "Anonymous" screen to hide behind but to address Mr. Anonymous who asks for specific Utah laws that the Ogden RDA has broken.
Senate Bill 184 passed in 2005 removed the provision that allowed larger cities to use tax increment from one RDA project area in another RDA project area.
Ogden has pledged the tax increment from 10 existing RDA projects to be used to pay for the debt on the proposed Rec Center. Read their RDA hand out of November 21, 2005.
Utah Code Annotated 17B-4-1003(b)(iii) provides that additional tax increment to RDA Projects must be done on or before July 1, 2005. This was not done.
Utah Code Annotated 17B-4-1003(3)(b)(ii)provides that any recreational facility had to have been started by December 31, 2005.
A sham ground breaking was held but no construction was timely begun.
The RDA TIF awarded to the Kemp Development Airport Project was illegal. The Kemp Project was never an RDA Project. This was given because as one Ogden RDA official said the project was going bellyup without it.
I say TOO BAD. Let it go bellyup. I don't see Ogden rushing to save the average person from bankruptcy if they bite off more than they can chew.
Mr. Anonymous, you write a good drivel at times but at other times it shows that you just don't know what you are talking about.
The Ogden RDA walks the borderline a lot of the time in regards to breaking the rules.
Dorothy, one correction to your statement about the RDA Board: "The Ogden RDA walks the borderline a lot of the time in regards to breaking the rules."
Correction: "The Ogden RDA, under the direction of its Executive Director, Matthew Godfrey, walks the borderline a lot of the time in regards to breaking the rules."
More Godfrey successes with RDA TIF game playing:
Union Station Project: TWO MILLION DOLLARS of public money flat out lost. Appears to be a ghost town behind the gates. City involved in major law suit with developers and contractors.
Times Square building: More public money flushed down the toilet. Building sits empty two years after completion.
American Can project: EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS of public money invested, a great deal of it most likely lost. Project is complete failure with the school as it's only tenant.
The afore mentioned 10 or so RDA projects whose TIF funds have been illegally diverted to the mayor's mall project - which is shaping up to be the most expensive fiasco and public loss of money in Utah's history.
The ill fated attempt by the Mayor, and his circle of incompetents, to cheat the land owners out of their property so they could sell it to Wal-Mart cheap.
The afore mentioned Kemp give away of $2.5 million of public money. (If the money flowed through to Adams, then it certainly flew in the face of the RDA laws which are in place to illiminate blight, not reward insider operators or promote jobs.
The bottom line Mr. Anonymous, is that you and your hero Mayor Godfrey, are oblivious to the truth about the total disasters visited upon Ogden by this rampant incompetence in the Godfrey Administration. Every thing they have touched has been a failure.
Ozboy,
Word on the street is the last unit at Union Square has been sold. For Times Square--how is the public money lost? Are you saying the city owns the building? American Can is not looking good---I will give you that. How much did you taxes go up because of these projects?
Dorothy,
How can you call the current taxes being paid by Fresenius, Williams, and Autoliv "drivel?" How would you propose tax paying companies such as these be brought here? TIF worked--what would you propose as an alternative?
I appreciate your attempt at listing a bunch of laws that I am sure exist---the questions are, "Do they apply in the situations you cite," and "Were the laws actually violated?" However, your track record in lawsuits lately shows you ought to stick to accounting. How many have you lost now? Shouldn't that be telling you something?
Mr. Anonymous:
For your information the only lawsuit I have filed against Ogden was dismissed by Judge Morris in District Court because my case was about constitutional issues.
Judge Morris said that he could not rule on my case because he had instructions from the Utah Surpeme Court that he could not rule in a lower court on constitutional issues because "it is presumed that the Utah Legislature passes only constitutional law".
In case you didn't notice, the Utah Legislature passed the law regarding eminent domain which proved the validity of my case for me.
The Legislature upstaged the Utah Supreme Court on this issue.
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