On Tuesday night the city manager said that taxes are not going up under the budget he has brought forward. He can say this because from his point of view taxes are not going up. His point of view is revenue to spend.
From the tax payers point of view this is false. The rate of taxes went up from $4.48 per $1000 of access value to $5.1953 per $1000. That is an increase of 16% but it generates no more revenue.
Residential tax payers as a group had a tax increase, but commercial tax payers had substantial reductions. In the commercial area i checked a few properties and found a reduction of 20 to 33% in the valuation.
So if your taxable house value was the same as last year your taxes went up, but if your commercial property went down in value 33%, you got a tax break. For example the commercial property located at 690 East Rhode Island Avenue in Orange City had its taxable valuation reduced by 22 %. So a tax rate increase of 16% is really a savings of 7% on what the business actually paid.
So if a RASH candidate for city council tells you, as he did Thursday night, that there is no tax increase he means that government has the same revenue just the burden of who pays has shifted.
Property values are down 16% since January 1 of this year. So the roll back rate for next year will be about $6.02 per $1000 of valuation at that rate, and it could be more. Consequences are coming to a wallet near you.