Say Anything Blog

Property taxes continue to be controversial.  Lots of misconceptions exist.  Huge numbers of people think the legislature is the reason property taxes are high.  Let’s set things straight.

Property taxes are figured by a complicated formula that starts with market value of your home and ends with being multiplied by the mill levy.  These two products are the only two variables in the formula.  They are strictly and solely determined by the budgets put forth by our local city commissioners, park board commissioners, school board members, and county commissioners.  The one and only way for your property taxes to go down are for those four local taxing authorities to REDUCE their budgets.  Reducing your mills does nothing to reduce your property taxes.  Don’t fall for that common misconstruing statement which so many commissioners try to use to cover up their bad spending habits.  Reasonable increases in spending at or close to the same increase in inflation would be acceptable.  But, for our local taxing authorities to be increasing spending at 10% annually, which is approximately three times the rate of inflation is unacceptable.  Before you know it, government will want all your money with the insinuation that they know how to spend your money better than you do.

Our local officials need to tell the truth to the taxpayers instead of trying to mislead them by using the “lower mill levy” argument.  Don’t insult us.  Now that you all know how your property taxes are figured, if you think they are rising faster than they should, contact your local commissioners and tell them so.  If they continue to raise your taxes at unacceptable levels, remember that come next election.  If you don’t know which commissioners are the spenders and which ones are the savers, their voting records are all publicly listed on their websites.  I’d encourage you to look it up, and then let them know what you think.  Otherwise, your property taxes will continue to rise as they are.