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Letter to the editor 26aug10
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"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams

"small portion of the property tax collected is put into a County capital reserve fund ... The funding for the Daniel Road project will also come out of this fund" - Commissioner Paul McIntosh

In other words, some money is taken from county residents in the form of a property tax (“the fund”). This same property tax money ("the fund") is then spent on the Daniel Road Complex.

Property taxes paying for the Daniel Road Project, and yet "the Daniel Road project ... will have no impact on the property tax rate"... interesting.

If the readers would indulge me, I will present the facts which prove that our property taxes are 22% higher as a direct consequence of debt for projects like the Daniel Road Complex.

The county's 2009-2010 budget allowed for the county to spend $48 million:

To fund its $40 million operation the county collects:

The $7.04 million in sales taxes is the non allocated portion of the $9.6 million collected from sales taxes, the remaining $2.56 million must be spent on schools or school related debt, as  legally required by the state laws which establish the local sales taxes, namely Article 39, Article 40 and Article 42.

As the county only has property taxes as a revenue source it can control, it must collect $24.56 million in property taxes in order to have the $40 million needed to operate the county government. On average this burdens the 18,000 families in the county about $1,354 per year in property taxes ($24.56M/18000 = $1354).

Now lets look at paying for the $8 million in debt payments:

As mentioned before, the county only has property taxes as a revenue source they can control, so the additional $5.44 million needed to pay for the debt has to come from property taxes.

So the original $24.56 million in property taxes collected to operate the county, now has to be increased by $5.44 million in order for the county to have enough money to pay for the debt payments.

A $5.44 million increase on $24.56 million is a 22% increase (100% * 5.44/24.56 = 22.15). That is an additional property tax burden of $302 per household each year just to maintain the county's debt ($5.44M/18000 = $302).

In the August 30th commissioner meeting, the county will propose borrowing another $6 million in order to start work on the Daniel Road Complex, EMS improvements and Park improvements. New debt will increase the amount of money the county has to collect each year in order to pay for that debt. And that money can come from nowhere else except from property taxes as shown above.

For the background on the above information, including links to original data, please visit our page dedicated to this topic at: http://rutherford912.org/debttax.

Zoran Naskov,

Rutherfordton, NC