From a lengthy article in the Jeffersonville News and Tribune:
The decision of the Clark County Board of Commissioners to increase the rates on two cumulative funds at a Thursday meeting has raised questions on how the decision will affect the county’s general fund, other taxing units and the taxpayers themselves.
The commissioners raised the rate on the cumulative capital fund from $0.018 to $0.0333, and raised the cumulative bridge fund’s rate from $0.008 to $0.05. The rate increases will raise about $2.2 million in revenue. The commissioners say they need the funds to pay for relief efforts in tornado-affected areas and repairs to county bridges and culverts.
In a letter submitted into the public record at Thursday’s meeting, County Commissioner John Perkins wrote that the cumulative bridge rate was reduced when a wheel tax was enacted, but was never increased when the wheel tax was later repealed. He cited those actions — along with the 2007 decision by the County Council to permanently eliminate 25 percent of the levy — as reasons for the commissioners’ actions Thursday.
“The ongoing damage to the general fund from that act has affected other funds in the years following 2007,” Perkins wrote. “[Contracted accounting firm] Umbaugh recommendations of July 11, 2011, have not been implemented to assist in infrastructure and bridge maintenance and repairs. Costs of these services increase from year to year.”
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The circuit breaker property tax caps were reached by 28.3 percent of tax parcels in Clark County in 2011, according to the LSA. The 2012 numbers are not available.
“If they’re not at the circuit breaker tax cap, whatever the rate increase is, that increase goes on the property taxes,” Clark County Auditor Monty Snelling said. “So if you haven’t met the cap yet, then your taxes will go up.”
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“If you have a parcel that is already at the circuit-breaker cap, and let’s assume the tax rate goes up, then that taxpayer is not going to pay any more taxes because they’re at the cap and their circuit-breaker credit increases,” the LSA said. “And that circuit-breaker credit is the loss of revenue that is shared by all of the taxing units in that tax district. Potentially, in that scenario, potentially then the library, and the school, and the floodwall, and the levee control — all of those taxing units then would share in the loss, if you will, that could be caused by another unit’s rate increase.”
See the full article here:
http://newsandtribune.com/business/x1402338219/Clark-County-rates-rising-but-what-does-it-mean
