Fayetteville Speaks: Re: Petty proposes raising (your) property taxes
“… maybe we should raise property taxes …”
a 24-hour news cycle later
Yep. I talked about taxes for 10 minutes or so at the last City Council meeting. Naturally, since I mentioned taxes, (some) local media spazzed out. Even though no one had proposed raising taxes, they began to prepare their spin machine, ready for the controversial news cycle that could sell their words for the next two weeks.
Naturally, that meant falsely reporting that a proposal to raise taxes had been made. Let the controversy begin!
To which I answer: “Ok. Wasn’t that the point anyway? Sheesh. What is so hard about reporting facts?”
Seriously though, it’s natural to have a bit of a freak out about raising taxes. To be honest, I feel like I’m going out on a limb even saying that raising taxes should be an option on the table.
The truth is that at the meeting, no one proposed raising the millage. What happened was I asked the rest of the Council and the audience to brainstorm ideas for the next two weeks. My question: “Is there anything we can invest in that makes sense now?”
Where I’m really coming from
I have to give at least some credit to the papers. A lot of people have been pushed to a freakout by economic conditions, and (some) local media are only riding the wave. After their headline, one resident emailed me and the rest of the Council, urging us to vote against ANY tax increase and asking me to explain myself.
This is a portion of my response to them.
In the meantime, if you can think of anything that the City should invest in, please tell us. Personally, I’m looking for low-cost, one-time payments that will bring an *economic* boost. I’m looking for things that we can expect to turn 2011 into a solid rebound, because I expect 2010 to be mostly flat. I’m looking for strategic “chess move” investments that will set 2011 to propel Fayetteville into the 21st century.
And I mean that in all seriousness. I don’t want to let a year go by where we miss a smart investment. There is a wishlist a mile long at City Hall, and what constitutes a “smart” investment is affected by the economic conditions. Fayetteville is fortunate, because we can continue to make some of those investments without using property taxes; we have lots of ways to invest.
No one has proposed raising property taxes yet. All I want to do is talk about it to make an informed decision. That’s what I was elected to do.
I just don’t want to take our options off of the table before we’ve even had a conversation about our potential investments. The next two weeks are crunch time, so if you have any ideas for good investments at all, let’s hear them. Then we can all decide if any are so good that they merit a property tax increase, or any 2010 spending at all.
There are a lot of potential investments, and we need to determine if any of them, even one, would be worth using property taxes for.
One legitimate reason for keeping taxes the same
In any given freakout about taxes, there are a lot of reasons presented for keeping taxes where they are already at. In Fayetteville, there are four main points to this discussion:
- The school district needs to raise taxes and they can’t if the City raises taxes. This just isn’t true, because of the timing involved. I’m only interested in a tax proposal that would raise taxes for one year. The District needs to raise taxes for a decade or more, and they are unlikely to ask for the tax increase until after any the City had passed was already repealed. It’s going to take them around a year to revisit their decisions and put forward a more cohesive plan for the public to vote on. In other words, any tax increase the City made would be gone by the time the District was ready to ask for a tax increase again.
- We need all options available to us if the economy gets even worse. This is true, but again, not relevant because it’s a matter of timing. We can only adjust property taxes once per year: in October. If we don’t raise them now, and the economy gets worse, we can’t do anything with taxes until next October. If we do raise them now, and the economy gets worse, we still can’t do anything until next October. And if we raise them and repeal them after one year, then next October we have all options available to us again to respond to an economy that is even worse off than it is now.
- That money should go to public safety, police and fire, first. I agree in principle, but the truth is our local economy isn’t strong enough to sustain the services we already offer. We can barely pay for police and fire, not to mention parks and streets and trails. We need to improve the way our local economy works before we restore spending to police, fire, and other programs. That means we need to find out if there are any strategic investments that would improve our economy, to make affording the other things easier in the future.
- It’s just not the right time to raise taxes, for anything. This is the only argument I see that might have some merit to it. So shouldn’t we talk about it?
It’s time for a truthful discussion
What I know is that the Council is only eight people, and the number of desks in City Hall working on this is probably less than 50. It’s hard for us to find diamonds in haystacks this big. Will you help us look for it? Or are we just going to assume that diamond doesn’t exist?
Matthew Petty
Fayetteville
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Comments
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Stephen V.
October 8, 2009
Mr. Petty:
have you ever considered:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_trading
?
Joseeee
October 8, 2009
Who are you?
roger
October 8, 2009
why isn’t there an impact fee for the BBBQ? especially if they are capable of skipping out on the charity aspect of their end. couldn’t this be an area explored for creating more revenue?
Matthew Petty
October 9, 2009
It wouldn’t be legal to charge an impact fee for BBBQ (state statute), but we should have a better partnership with the nonprofit for the sales of vendor spaces. It’s something a few people have mentioned, and it could make a difference.
It’s also been mentioned that we could require the vendors to deposit their sales taxes with the City daily. Both of these things may be part of the BBBQ conversation next year, if more people think it’s a good idea.
Personally, I want to find some way to give more support to two groups: arts and technology. We’re just about the only high-performing city that doesn’t give direct support to either.
Michael
October 9, 2009
Before we start adding on more services, how about we get into a position to properly fund the existing services offered or start eliminating services.
Matthew Petty
October 9, 2009
That’s a good point, and it’s the point of this discussion, too. We can barely fund existing services, and our economy needs to get better before we can restore the cuts we’ve had to make.
For as long as I can remember, the health of our economy has largely been a function of luck. We’ve been lucky for the past 8 – 12 years, and now we’re not so lucky.
But it can be about more than luck. I think there are strategic investments that would make our economy more resilient to downturns and more profitable when spending is up.
And if there is any investment out there that requires ongoing costs (like “more services”), it’s definitely not appropriate for our property tax discussion. The only investments that make sense in times like these are one-time, low-cost expenditures that give a return without requiring ongoing investment.
Me
October 9, 2009
Matt, how can you say “the truth is our local economy isn’t strong enough to sustain the services we already offer. We can barely pay for police and fire, not to mention parks and streets and trails.” and then say we need to give more support to arts and technology? It sounds to me like we already offer too many services and should not funnel more to arts and technology. Maybe if it wasn’t so prohibitive to build in Fayetteville we’d have more revenue from developers and sales tax?
Matthew Petty
October 9, 2009
Because there investments and there are liabilities. Police and fire doesn’t make the economy stronger; it’s just a necessity we have to pay for.
There are technological investments already written into the budget that are going to save us loads. Like a time-keeping system (what? you’ve had one at your office for a decade and you can’t believe the City still uses paper? Me either.) and a network upgrade for our remote locations to increase productivity.
All I’m asking is: are there other things like that? Improvements with one-time costs that make our economy more productive?
yrfuneralmytrial
October 10, 2009
Used bike sale? Just kidding Petty!
burgerboy
October 11, 2009
To MP’s credit, he isn’t one of the anti-development people on the city council. In fact, he’s one of the most business-friendly so far.
I can’t imagine any company investing in our community, as each one will have to be subjected to an endless barrage of hippie activists who object to a spade turning a shovel in this city without a permit and an erosion-mitigation fence.
The most vocal activists in this city don’t represent the majority. I wish our mayor realized that.
Still, when our City Council is turning away developers left and right, based on dubious claims of “incompatibility”, a tax increase is pretty hard to stomach.
burgerboy
October 11, 2009
Another point: I don’t like having tax increases proposed to me by someone who most likely wasn’t in line at the court house last week cutting a check to the government for property taxes.
In these tough times, its pretty tough to part with that big chunk of cash every year.
David Franks
October 12, 2009
burgerboy–
You think the hippie activists in Fayetteville object only to “a spade turning a shovel”? I think they object to _anybody_ turning a shovel without proper site preparation.
burgerboy
October 12, 2009
Lolz
Jim Laubler
October 12, 2009
It’s time for a reality check. I come from the outside. However, I wave my retired military ID card when somebody wants to call me an outsider who should shut his mouth. I’ve done my time.
That aside, my first impretion of Fayetteville is dreary. A drive down 6th street shows a shamble of squeezed in businesses with different colors represented on the buildings…. to include purple. It looks like a slum.
Downtown would look like Gotham City if it weren’t for the wonderful landscaper you have. Again, the buildings are dreary.
This is where I say “Reality Check”. Fayetteville is not some shining beacon on the hill that the rest of the people in the United States look to as an example of a great city. Companies like Walmart are the draw here which caused our recent surge in the economy. If anything, Bentonville is the NEW area that is shiny and organized (in places). Fayetteville (IMHO) looks like the old New England type of town that shows its age. Lack of vision has created kings without clothes.
Finally, you ask WHY I moved here. A wife who LOVES here grandchildren and children. She’s the ultimate mother whom everybody naturally gravitates to. I settled in Fayetteville to put her in the center of the children who cannot afford to move or live in a “Shiny city on the hill”.