By $11M. So even with the Board of Estimate changes, that’s an increase of 4.93%, not 4.99% so the council has more room to raise taxes if they are going to stay within the 5% limit the Mayor unilaterally set for them. It should help the county and school board a bit too. Here’s the details:
From: Brasser, Dean
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2010 5:38 PM
To: Cieslewicz, Dave; ALL ALDERS
Cc: Hanson, Mark; Simon, Debra; Fruit, Tim; Bohrod, Daniel; York, Elizabeth; MY GROUP
Subject: Revised Tax Base for 2011 Budget DiscussionMayor Dave and Common Council Members:
I want to make you aware of a slight revision we have made to the 2011 budget projection in advance of next week’s Common Council budget deliberations. City Assessor Mark Hanson reported this morning that the Board of Review completed its decisions regarding the remaining assessment objections yesterday, resulting in a total net assessed property value of $21,274,090,500, roughly $11,000,000 higher than was predicted earlier.
This modest increase in the total assessed value means that taxes on the hypothetical “average home” will be about $1.14 lower than the figure calculated at the end of the Board of Estimates budget meeting on November 1st, an increase of 4.93% over last year rather than the 4.99% I reported at that time.
I’ve attached a one page summary that displays the revised figures. This will be the starting point for the Council’s budget amendment process next week. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Dean Brasser
City Comptroller
While Brenda may think that the Mayor’s mandate to the Council to keep the tax increase to 5% is to low, most of us in the real world think it is too high. Modt of us who do not work for some form of government have not see a raise in two years. Neither have those on Social Security, and State pensioners have seen a decrease. We are long overdue for a taxpayer revolt.
It’s not that it is too low, its just that the alders never had the discussion about what was too high and too low. They should have set a number for the Mayor to come in under and then adjusted for their priorities from there. The mayor’s got all the control and if he sets it at 5%, he can come in with a budget at that number or close and leave the council with no say in the budget at all.
Modt of us who do not work for some form of government have not see a raise in two years.
Umm, government workers are not raking in the cash. The state government is cutting back even now.
And you know, there are people in the private sector getting raises.