Saturday, May 26, 2012

County Holds Line On Property Taxes

Read the column here.

Unified Government’s Public Hearing on the FY 2013 Budget:


The “double dip” housing market problem (of particular note for local readers are the absolutely horrid numbers for the Atlanta market):


The “shadow” inventory problem:





The “robo-signing” settlement problem (originally applicable to five major banks in February, expanded to another eight in March; by the way, true to form and reminiscent of the tobacco settlement of years ago, several states have already started to apply their windfalls not to redress mortgage foreclosure problems as intended, but to plug various holes in their budgets):




Addendum


I never stated that the only way to account for the additional revenue needed was by adding owner-occupied residential units, as I am fully aware that local government has a variety of income sources.  What I said was “That means the equivalent of more than 6.3 homes, just like ours, must be added to the county’s property tax digest every day for the entire year to account for the new spending in the proposed FY 2013 budget.”  Since the point of my column concerned City Hall’s millage rate, this seemed a useful way of presenting my argument.

Be that as it may, the proposed FY 2013 Operating Budget is $104,338,470 and the proposed FY 2013 Capital Current Services and Additions & Improvements budget is $3,194,000, for a total of $107,532,470.  The equivalent figures for FY 2012 are $103,892,731, $2,300,800, and $106,193,331, respectively

So, even if one excludes the CCSA&I portion of the budgets, FY 2013 is still increasing spending by $445,739 over that of FY 2012.



Also, see these previous Banner-Herald articles that mention a $107.5 million figure for the FY 2013 budget:



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Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Ron Paul's Bye-ku

As usual, shamelessly lifted from James Taranto over at WSJ's Best of the Web Today:

Ron Paul (15 May)

Latest word from the
Ron Paul Survival Report
Is that he didn't

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Monday, May 7, 2012

Newt's Bye-ku

Newt Gingrich (25 April)

The gun-toting sheep
Of Beltway cocktail parties
Stand victorious

Yes, I realize that I am running somewhat behind with this, the latest of James Taranto's GOP presidential candidate bye-kus for 2012, published a couple of weeks back on the WSJ's "Best of the Web" feature.

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