What do our taxes pay for?

Jovick-Kuntz said she thinks it’s important for people to realize the property taxes they pay don’t cover as much of the city’s costs as they might think.

“They think that because they pay their property taxes, that takes care of everything,” Jovick-Kuntz said. “That barely covers their police and fire departments.” Fees and assessments cover other things, such as trash pickup and water and sewer services.

I don’t know about you guys, but I get a bill in the mail every month. It is for my trash, water, fire hydrant, storm drain and sewer services.

Obviously our police need more money. We don’t pay our Officers enough to keep them here after training them. (Jovick-Kuntz said that too, at the debate.) We lost money on Explore! We lose money on golf. Regardless of what else happens with it, we will be paying more for animal control. We put money in soccer parks, water parks, skate parks, etc.

But our taxes barely cover Police and Fire.

So where is the 1.4 million deposit for ECP/SME coming from?

Payment of the Water Credit to SME? Where is the City getting that? Oh, yeah, selling cost based power - at a loss.

1.5 million in bonds for development and planning the plant?

180 million for building the plant?

I dug out my tax statement. Nowhere on it does it say “your taxes barely cover police and fire, so you have no right to complain about anything else.”

I am not saying my taxes pay for everything. But it is my money, which I pay to the City. If our taxes do not cover anything but police and fire, how does the City justify paying for so many other things that are not basic services.

If our police department cannot afford to pay officers to stay in Great Falls as police officers, how do we justify paying them to run the animal shelter, or act as bouncers at Commission meetings?

ELECTRIC UTILITY- Consent agenda’s 2007
ELECTRIC UTILITY FUND GENERAL DEBT SERVICE PAYMENT 51,505.85 (Jan 16, 2007)

SOUTHERN MT ELECTRIC GEN & TRANS HGS DEVELOPMENT COSTS 186,280.61 (Feb 20, 2007)

CROWL;EY HAUGHEY HANSON TOOLE LOBBYIST FEES 5,566.00 (?)
 
RW BECK CONSULTING FOR HIGHWOOD GEN PROJ 70,605.08

LUXAN & MURFITT CONSULTING FOR PSC PROCEEDING 8,712.19 (March 20, 2007)

RW BECK FINAL RPT HIGHWOOD STATION 7,393.89 (April 17, 2007)

CROWLEY HAUGHEY HANSON TOOLE LOBBYIST FEES 7,365.00 (?)
 
DORSEY & WHITNEY BOND COUNCIL ATTY #3421 SERVICES 18,902.84 (May 15, 2007)

R W BECK INC CONSULTING PHASE 2 TASK ORDER 123 54,630.01 (June 19, 2007)

FIRST INTERSTATE BANK DEBT SERVICE PMT, ELECTRIC UTILITY 50,662.66 (July 17, 2007)

R W BECK INC PROFESSIONAL SERVICES 20,932.79 (Aug 7, 2007)

DORSEY & WHITNEY LEGAL SERVICES ECPI 8,793.88 (October 16, 2007)

Total: $478,419.80 in 2007 alone. (I did not include the lobbying fees)

For that amount of money, we could pay 30 police officers an additional 15,947.00 each per year.  (I picked 30 at random)

We could fund the animal shelter at the recommended $420,000.00 for one year, and have money left over.

We could spend $478,419.80 on repairing sidewalks, filling potholes, planting trees, funding the Meals on Wheels program, painting those little fishies on the storm drains, etc.

We could have paid almost half of the Water Credit debt.

We could have paid each City Commissioner an additional $996.70 per month for the next eight years.  

$478,419.00

If it’s important for the people to realize what our taxes pay for, isn’t it doubly important for our elected officials to realize what our taxes should pay for?

9 January 2008 | Life | Comments