The Always Affable and Tax Happy Mayor Huether

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The little talked about Board of Tax Appeals got interesting last time around, especially when Mike Huether showed up;

I stated my objection to the increase and the mayor put his hand up for me to be quiet. He visited with Kenny Anderson, then asked me what I paid for my condo. I told them, and he visited with Anderson again. He asked me if my condo was the same as the one across the hall. I said, “Yes.” He informed me she paid $202,000. I objected, as her purchase included furniture. I also informed them they couldn’t know the actual cost of the unit because of that. (I later asked her, and she paid $10,000 less).

I started another statement of facts and the mayor raised his hand to quiet me again. He spoke to Anderson, and asked for a vote of the commissioners. All said, “Aye.” I said, “Excuse me, but I would like to know what you decided?” The mayor stated they decreased my assessment $4,000, which will determine my 2017 taxes. I informed the mayor I had owned property in South Dakota for 50 years, and never has the assessed value, the prepaid taxes and realtor fee exceeded the selling price of the property. As usual, the Mayor rudely raised his hand to quiet me.

I would not expect to be treated like that by an elected official. He is obviously more interested in acting important than caring about a voter or her problem.

He cares. About taxing the living crap out of you. Gotta pay for those play things.

 

Water conservation = Lower Rates. I jest.

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The Argus Leader ED board has a brilliant suggestion;

We believe the water system should pay for itself, through the users, and that pricing for those services needs to help drive conservation.

If we feel our water bills are too high, maybe we can start by using less water?

Uh, yes, what a freaking concept. This poor stupid hippie in me has all of sudden forgotten about ‘conservation’. Except the fact of the glaring irony of your statement (so bold and finger pointing). Water rates did not go up for decades because the city was selling water at an all time high. In fact, during the Hanson administration, the water plant almost blew up. Really, it almost did. Or was it Munson? I forget.

So then we had exploding sewer pipes, etc. The city said, ‘Goddammit we are going to conserve!’ Bravo! They started handing out toilet rebates like candy and fancy low flow shower heads and garden hose thingies.

We were on our way to catching up with modern society, because once we conserve, our water rates would go down. I jest.

Quite the opposite. We started conserving, even at a record amount, then came that pesky Events Center and Jason Aldean concerts. How to pay for them? Well, it is quite simple. We start making water users, even the ones that conserve like a camel in a dessert, pay for pipes that orginally came from the 2nd penny infrastructure funds.

Oh, and what about all this urban sprawl, Foundation Park and the 22 Walmarts we need to build in the middle of cornfields? We gotta pay for pipes to them to. It’s all about those high paying jobs, you know.

So what has all this brilliant conservation gotten us? Well we got this awesome $80 million dollar pipeline that really only helped our Iowa neighbors get cheaper water that we only use about 10% of the time (because we are mandated to).

So if we really want to talk conservation and lower rates, let’s have this seventh grade math problem conversation. Those who truly conserve should pay on a sliding scale with those who don’t (and I mean a real one). In other words, if the average single family household uses less then that amount each month, they should get a substantial discount, if they don’t they should get a hefty ‘service charge’ for not conserving.

Isn’t that the enduring concept behind ‘conservation’? The less you use, the less you pay? Because the last I checked when I opened up my water bill this last month, there wasn’t a free pair of tickets to see Paul McCartney.

What was that Cotter? 70% on roads?

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As a South DaCola foot soldier points out, Public Works director Mark Cotter may have ‘Mispoke’ recently on the Belfrage Show when he said “70% of the 2nd penny is spent on roads. As ‘Warren’ points out, not so fast;

I was also wondering where cotter got that 70% figure for second penny money for streets. Seemed high considering our debt service for playthings.

From page 8 2015 budget.

Street. 47.6%
Debt service. 28.1%
Culture/Rec. 14.3%
Police/Fire. 5.4%
Info/Tech (indoctrination) 2.2%
And a couple more percent split amongst several other departments

From page 8 2016 budget

Street. 51%
Debt service 26.8%
Culture/Rec. 11.2%
Police /Fire. 4.4%
Info/ Tech. 2%

The city has two reserve funds. The general fund is the city’s primary operating fund. This cover department wages, services, day to day functions. Main sources of revenue are the 1st penny tax and property tax.

The CIP is a plan, by department, that list capital projects related to infrastructure costs. The second penny funds this. Does the above look like the intent of the second penny?

Another note. The water reclamation enterprise fund (piggy bank, courtesy of the bills we pay) has 62.4 million in it. The water department has 39 million.

As Stehly has pointed out correctly, we ARE NOT spending enough of the 2nd penny on roads and infrastructure, and our enterprise funds really are turning into a ‘slush fund’ due to the enormous rate increases. Maybe Mark and Finance Director Tracy Turbak need to have a meeting a get on the same page before blasting councilors elect Stehly and Neitzert for pointing out the truth. One of these days the current administration will figure out that that lying thing will eventually bite you in the ass.

 

Property taxes (assessments) are going up in Lincoln County, but not because of the Harrisburg School District

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So this email from the super of Harrisburg was recently sent out;

—–Original Message—–

From: Notification from Harrisburg School District [mailto:Notification-Do_Not_Reply@target.brightarrow.com]

Sent: Saturday, April 02, 2016 2:01 PM

To: – – – –

Subject: This is a notification from Harrisburg School District

We are hearing that some people in Lincoln County are seeing that their real estate taxes have taken a big jump.  What we understand is that most of this is due to higher assessments on property.  The Harrisburg School has again not raised their tax levies for the 9th year in a row.  Any increases you may see are not due to an increase by the school.  Jim Holbeck

The assessments are up in Sioux Falls to. Funny how this city is swimming in money and we have all this borrowing power, of course we do, we keep increasing taxes.

HB1182 passes senate, one of the most ignorant decisions the State Legislature has ever made

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I have been following the state legislature for many years, and passing a regressive sales tax increase to give raises to one sector of public employment is probably one of the worst things I have seen our state legislature do in recent memory (besides all the social issues).

I won’t rant about all the other options we had to increase teacher pay without raising taxes, we have seen those options (there are hundreds). One of the best that was actually presented to me a few years ago by representative Hunhoff (who voted yes) was pulling from our gigantic state reserves. We didn’t hear much from Hunhoff on that idea this session. He must have forgotten about it.

So what happened? The only ones voting against this were the cheap skates of the legislature, who would vote against any tax increase. But what about the other Republicans? Are they so scared of property tax and and income tax that they voted to tax the poorest of our society more? Most likely.

But the big losers in this debate? The SD Democratic party. For years they cry about the food tax and general regression of sales taxes to begin with, and when they had a chance to stand up to this and present their own plan they suddenly turn into a gigantic flock of chickenshits.

It doesn’t surprise me our doofus of a governor would concoct such an ignorant plan, I just never imagined 2/3 of our legislature was this moronic to go along with it.

I’ll pray for you tonight.