The Campaign to Elect Steve Fry - Taxes and the County Budget

Steve's Thoughts On Taxes & The County Budget

“Our County budget determines how many tax dollars are needed to run the County. This money is paid by you, the Pike County homeowner and from tax money collected from sales in Pike County. This is your money, collected to run your County. You have a right to know how it is being spent and to make sure it is spent wisely and efficiently.

The average home price in Pike County is about $150,000. The assessed tax value is 40 per cent of that or $60,000. Homestead exemption reduces that by another $8,000. That means the average homeowner is taxed on $52,000. With the current millage rate that means you pay $1,306 in property taxes for that home. The cost of putting one student through one year of school averages about $4,000. The portion the County pays of that is about $1,800.

You can see by that example that with one child in school we are working at a loss for the County and we have not factored in the cost of the Sheriff’s office, Fire Department, Road and Public Works and other employees, etc. For every dollar collected in residential housing taxes it costs approximately $1.35 to support that residence. For every tax dollar collected from businesses it costs about 40 cents to support it. This is where we can make some headway and support our cost of infrastructure for residential housing. For every tax dollar collected from agricultural property it costs about 25 cents to support it. That is one reason there is an incentive to place large tracts in CUVA or conservation use.

We still have to be careful however, that our residential growth doesn’t outpace our business, industrial or agricultural base or the only option is to raise taxes to cover the added expense of supporting the incoming residents. Sales of existing residences do not cause the same increase because the value of the residence is usually higher on the resale than it was previously and there is no increase in the population of the County since the buyer is only taking the place of the former resident.

There is a method to support the building industry (see link to fire departments, water, and growth) and provide housing required by Pike County’s population growth and not cause such an increase in the property taxes of existing residents. The increase in growth causes an impact on schools, roads, police and fire departments. New growth allowed due to annexation by cities also impacts the County. This impact on our infrastructure can be offset by a tax applied only to those buying new construction. This helps to keep property taxes lower since new construction will have the impact fees applied instead of raising everyone’s taxes to subsidize the cost of new residences. This tax is appropriately known as an impact fee since it is designed to lessen the impact of new and increased growth on existing schools and infrastructure.

Pike County currently enjoys lower cost housing and lower taxes than many nearby counties. The addition of these impact fees would not be a deterrent for people considering the move to pike County. This will allow Pike County to obtain the necessary funds up front to provide the increase in services and infrastructure required to support population growth instead of waiting to reassess everyone to catch up from the deficit caused by unplanned growth.

Citizens of Pike County are also paying State and Federal tax dollars which fund programs for rural areas such as Pike County. Money is available for the asking. We have only just begun to realize some of the funds offered to improve our communities. Good grant writing can allow some of our tax dollars to come back home to Pike County and be put to good use. We are already paying for these programs and we should put them to use here.”

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