2016 Budget comparisons between Sioux Falls & Rapid City

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This is strictly informational. I noticed that Rapid City approved their 2016 budget the other night, so I decided to crunch a few numbers.

I will admit, I would much rather live in SF then RC, but I have friends that live in RC and they love it. They say there is far more recreational opportunities. I still think quality of life is probably better in SF, but that is a matter of opinion.

Now for the numbers;

Sioux Falls proposed 2016 budget; $471 Million, 170K residents, $2,770 per person.

Rapid City’s implemented 2016 budget; $156 Million, 72K residents, $2,167 per person.

I have no doubt there will be some cutting and shuffling going on with the SF budget, but I doubt it will sway to far from the proposed amount.

We don’t need an inflationary property tax increase.

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Believe it or not, I don’t always agree with councilor Staggers, but he is spot on that we don’t need to increase property taxes with inflation. We are a growing city, we also have natural increases in property value. There is NO reason to stick it to property tax owners. Let’s take my little Casa. When I bought my home over 13 years ago I was paying about $475 a year, I now pay over $1,100. Think about that if you own something substantial. When you factor in actual inflation, opt-outs and home improvements, you are looking at taking it in the shorts. Also factor in I am single, don’t have kids in the school district and don’t commit crime, they are basically charging me for the ills and social costs of society. You wonder why people ask for TIFs like free coffee refills, property taxes are killing us.

Traditionally, when Sioux Falls policymakers are slated to boost tax rates as they adopt the next year’s budget, the action item is listed as “an ordinance … providing appropriations and the means of financing for the fiscal year.”

That’s not transparent enough, said Staggers, who’s bringing a measure before the council Tuesday to force proposed tax hikes to be listed on agendas as an ordinance “authorizing an increase in property taxes.”

Staggers said the average citizen doesn’t have time to research every item scheduled for council action, and oftentimes skimming titles is how they learn about what’s happening.

“It’s about transparency,” he said. “It seems like a very reasonable and sensible thing. It should be very clear when we’re having tax increases.”

And I would go farther to agree, being dishonest with the public about supposed tax increases is never good public policy. We wonder why people are moving to the burbs in drones?

We know who wants to keep the BID tax review meetings held in secrecy

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Here we go again, the most transparent administration in city history hiding behind ‘supposed’ rules. City Attorney, Loophole David Fiddle-Faddle lays it out for us;

Pfeifle said in an email last week that ad-hoc advisory committees do not fall under the umbrella of open meeting rules prescribed in state statute and city charter. Whether or not the meetings are open, he said, will be at the discretion of the review committee.

Oh, Fiddle, then why don’t you advise them to keep them open, heck, even offer them Carnegie Hall for the meetings, or maybe we should hide the meetings on the back nine at Elmwood like they do with the Parks Board meetings.

“There shouldn’t be any secrets, so what’s to hide? I don’t know why it would be closed,” she said.

Because ‘Hizzoner’ is probably requesting it. This way, nobody from the public or from the hotel industry can challenge the decisions being made. But the finance director has a better excuse;

“One of the advantages of having a closed room meeting is people are often times less inhibited about having free and open discussion,” Turbak said.

Yeah, that’s what Hitler used to tell his Generals. Oh, and the irony of him suggesting the discussion will be more open and free by not making it open and free. WTF?

I will compare this to an experience I had last week at the SF City Council working session. During the course of the meeting I listened to the ideas being thrown around by the council, then was allowed to comment on a couple of them. By allowing my comment and one from my cameraman, the council came up with some new ideas about the free pool passes and how EBT cards work. Imagine that, having an open public meeting where the public can listen and make suggestions.

But hey, that’s not how things work in a dictatorship. Give me the money! That is the only thing the mayor wants to hear at the end of the day.

To their credit though, it seems some members of the review board want the meeting to be open to the public;

“I’m an individual who always believes in being open and transparent,” said Tom Bosch, a review committee member who spent 14 years as the general manager of Holiday Inn Sioux Falls before taking a role at Avera McKennan. “I’d be in favor at this point, unless I hear a reason otherwise, … to have it be an open meeting.”

Paul Schiller, another person expected to aid in the review, agreed.

“I wouldn’t have any problem keeping it open,” he said. “I’m hoping for a very open and honest debate going back and forth about how these funds are used.”

I guess we will see how this shakes down.

Is Mayor Huether’s greed starting to rear it’s head?

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There has been some rumblings for awhile that certain people at city hall are a little envious of the BID (business improvement district) tax. They want it so bad, they can taste it. In fact, the mayor’s wife tried to snatch some of it up to help market (raise money) for the indoor (private) tennis facility.

My drinking buddy (inside joke) Joe Sneve over at the Argus Leader can fill you in a little bit;

“Much has changed in the past five years in Sioux Falls and it’s prudent to step back and assess whether there are new or different opportunities of which we could take advantage and whether or not the priorities established five years ago remain the priorities today,” the email said.

The review committee will be comprised of councilors, CVB-BID board members and representatives from the public and business community. The group have three goals: find better ways to use available tax revenues, find any “quick-wins” that could be applied in the coming year, and make recommendations for long-term changes to diversify how BID revenues are spent, potentially using them for brick-and-mortar projects or expenses.

The original intent of this money was to market our city to bring in tourism, which is economic impact, which is funded by tourists. Seems to make sense. Use the extra ‘tax’ to fund marketing to bring in more travelers and tourists who use our hotels.

But it seems our mayor sees another cookie jar he can rob from for his ‘quick wins’. Not sure who will be on the BID review board, but I hope they recommend to keep things just the way they are, use 100% of the tax to market our city.

As for the mayor for proposing this review (to ultimately take some of this money) he really should be ashamed, but that would require him to actually have any shame to begin with . . . maybe with the help of God he can create some.