The Gazette paper of July 16, on the front page, reports that interviews with Montgomery County citizens who have received their 2008 tax bills found that even though their community home values have decreased in recent months their tax bills have increased substantially. This is caused by the 3 year assessment cycle that may have evaluated their home in a previous year when home prices were much higher while their current home value has gone down and that is not reflected in their bill. Thus they must pay a substantial tax increase made much worse because the County has raised the current tax rate by more than 10% over the cap value. See the Gazette article here for a more detailed description of what is happening:
http://www.gazette.net/stories/071608/montnew181059_32357.shtml
Be aware that the worse is yet to come because it is estimated that next year's budget deficit may be $250 million and would have to be covered by yet again a real property tax increase unless the County takes actions to cut expenses. You may have read that the School system has requested an additional $5 million for added fuel costs for the school bus system. While the average citizen has been forced to economize in these difficult times the County Council has refused to do the same. By waving a 30% county union wage increase in our faces we have been left to absorb more taxes while these high paid union workers, many of whom do not even live in Montgomery County, go on their merry way to enjoy the largess we are providing them. At next election time we must show the present Council membership what we think of their extravagant use of our tax dollars. What do you think?
Thursday, July 17, 2008
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1 comments:
I wonder what will happen when the assessed valuations actually catch up with the realities of the contemporary marketplace?
I also wonder if the people running projections for upcoming budgets are keeping in mind that even if they can currently play games with "float" -- "Float" is the time between when you deposit a check and when the account actually sees a transfer of funds -- someday the assessed values and the actual values will catch up with them.
Think of this as the end-game of a Ponzi Scheme, of "check kiting". Suddenly they're realize that they have to massively increase the property-tax rate. And all of this is going to be especially hard on retirees and the disabled persons who have fixed incomes. Even as inflation takes its toll, credit is drying up and the major resource of unmortgaged property is declining in value. Yet unless the County cuts expenses, it's going to have to raise property-tax rates.
So, the pressure will be increasing for programs to be scaled back. But I expect that the County won't reduce the workforce or pay them less or give out less extravigant raises. I expect they'll just stop patching the potholes and fixing up old sad school buildings.
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