There isn’t a property tax increase that Brandon (Weirdsville) doesn’t love. About $400 a year increase to build a Softball field. What a genius idea 🙁 What’s next, a wheel tax increase to help fund Automania?
I honestly don’t know if our property taxes are high or not compared to other locations, I just haven’t worried about it. However, this week the Brandon City Council is outlining a bond proposal that will be voted on in October. The issue? To me, the issue is little town envy of our big cousin to the west. We have one stinkin’ hotel. We have no good restaurants. It’s not like Brandon is a tourist Mecca. However, the brilliant powers that be have decided that Brandon needs to compete with Sioux Falls and other surrounding cities for the softball tournaments that bring in outside folks.
We already have a nice large park with multiple softball fields in the complex. However, the “softball lobby†in Brandon is pushing for a massive upgrade. How massive? A $14 million renovation, to be mostly funded by a proposed bond measure. The measure would call for $12.5 million to be raised, paid for over 10 years by a $3 per $1,000 house valuation increase on property taxes.
$3 PER THOUSAND…….Who do they think will ever support this? I would move before I paid $600 a year more in tax for softball.
WHERE’S KELO OR THE ARGUS ON THIS ISSUE? probably oiling their bike chains.
The letter writer OBVIOUSLY hasn’t counted the hotels in town lately. Suppose he/she may be wrong about anything else too? And has no idea how their tax rates compare? Yeah – real involved citizen. Oh well, gotta start sometime I suppose. A little better preparation might be beneficial though.
Ok. Brandon has TWO hotels.
Yeah, Ruf had to find ‘something wrong’ about the post.
As a person who has no children, I don’t mind paying some property taxes to assist in educating our future generations. I am sick and tired of paying to placate or entertain children.
Brandon, Tea, Harrisburg were built up as the places a cheap or fear full family could move to escape the big city. Well good for them. These towns are now finding out how expensive it is to move out in the country. They are tired of having to drive back to Sioux Falls to entertain their children. I have heard complaining stories for years from my friends and customers after they have had to make two to three round trips to Sioux Falls. Now they will have the taxes to go with the extra fuel costs to make it more expensive to live in the burbs.
Next thing they’ll want their own Walmart to destroy their homegrown local businesses. Oh wait, I know one they could have, it hasn’t even been built yet…
It seems the original author was correct. The final figure is $2.98 (lets just call it $3) per thousand although it does seem they are planning more than just softball fields as it is a park expansion with a number of other enhancements. It does seem the bulk of the cost is for land and softball fields however… so yea – I’d call this clearly outrageous.
So for someone who moves to Brandon and buys a nice $200,000 home, they are going to see their yearly taxes go up by $600. For softball. Seriously.
Ok I’m going to geek out a bit here but I had to know what numbers are we thinking about. So I did a basic calculation assuming 3% increase in property values for that 20 years. If we start off with a $200,000 home and use the $3 per thousand the cost during year one is $600, but at the end of 20 years that home is worth $350,000 and the cost of the bond is now $1052.
Add up the entire bond for the 20 year period and you have a whopping total of $16122.22 in extra taxes paid… all for a city park with some softball fields.
Here is the latest from their city council on the project:
http://www.brandon.govoffice.com/vertical/sites/%7B23CB10F0-8C35-4CA4-9AD1-B693F0F58E76%7D/uploads/08-05-13_.pdf
Needless to say – I don’t see any possible way the Brandon voters would support this. Even $300 on a $100k home is a lot of money – so will voters support $25 a month for a park? I don’t see it happening.
Craig, pretty assanine if you ask me.
Testor – FYI – Tea has the highest per household income of any city/town in the state. Cheap?
Craig – you need to figure the value of the ever-increasing number of folks living in Brandon and the ever-increasing over-all tax base. 40 years ago, when I started building houses in Brandon, the population was 380. Average home value was under $40K. 20 years from now what do you imagine the population of Brandon will be? in te last 20 years it has increased by 225% – that’s more than 4X. Continuing growth like it has experienced will more or less wipe out that tax increase in the next 5 years.
ruf, I guess they moved out to Tea so thry don’t have to pay for anything yet, YET. Oh boy
rufus they might continue to grow, but most likely it won’t be at the current level. The law of diminishing returns kicks into play at some point and they won’t be able to count on the current pace of growth forever… just ask the city of Tea.
Either way, their own City Council is still saying taxes will go up $3 per $1,000 of value. Perhaps it won’t take them 20 years to pay for that bond but that still won’t help the people impacted on day one. I simply cannot fathom having to pay an extra $50 or $75 a month on my mortgage just so some softball-loving organization can get a new complex.
The entire concept is insane – and unless I’m very much out of touch with the citizens of Brandon, I don’t see how anyone would vote to support this idea.
However this does shine the light on one major reason many people avoid the bedroom communities of Harrisburg, Tea, or Brandon. Those cities simply cannot collect enough in sales tax revenue to fund their operations because most of the people who live there actually do the bulk of their shopping in Sioux Falls. This means when those cities want to fund a project, they need to look at bond measures and property taxes. People might think they will save money by moving to one of these towns, but I’m not convinced. Add up the higher taxes and the increased fuel it takes to commute back and forth to Sioux Falls for work, dining, shopping, or recreation… I’m not so sure it doesn’t cost more to live in those areas.
So I guess for those in Brandon, seeing their taxes go up for a new park probably isn’t as much of a shock as if it happened to the residents of Sioux falls. If people here had to pay an extra $50 a month for the new Events Center I’m pretty sure you would be seeing mass protests in front of City Hall.
They screamed when they suggested a temporary penny increase in sales taxes to pay for the EC.
Craig, you assume voters actually will 1) know what the bond measure will cost them, and 2) will actually vote against it. Hope to god they don’t approve it, but apathy and ignorance are sometimes more to overcome than the bill itself.
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Sounds like the Brandonians don’t know softball isn’t even popular anymore. If you want people to move in and raise kids, you build soccer fields.