District Sets the Levy

From the District’s website http://www.rdale.org

The Robbinsdale Area School Board adopted the final 2011 property tax levy at its December 6 meeting following a public Truth-in-Taxation hearing. The $54.3 million levy, payable in 2011, will be used to finance a portion of the operations of the district for the 2011-2012 school year. Property taxes in 2011 will make up approximately a third of the district’s total revenue.

Now for the stuff that really matters to us….

The levy represents a $1.25 million (2.4 percent) increase over the previous year’s levy, and is $1.2 million less than the proposed levy adopted by the board in October.

So just like our cities and our counties, our home values go down and our taxes go up.  But, since they could have levied $1.2 million more they probably think we should thank them.

“For the second year in a row, the board chose to levy less than the maximum allowed by the state,” said Lonnie Smith, executive director of business services, “We recognize the challenges taxpayers face in our current economic situation. This decision helps minimize the impact to property owners this year.”

All right!  Like we said it’s only a small increase!  We have to pay those unions!

Now listen to what the District claims the impact of this tax hike is;

While the total levy amount will increase slightly, individual homeowner property taxes could increase by a greater percentage. In most cases, property owners will see a decrease in the tax levy from the voter approved referendum due to estimated lower enrollment. Other local school levies are likely to increase since the overall levy is increasing and because a decline in property values means the rates on all properties must increase in order to collect the same amount of revenue.

What?  Why can’t anyone in government simply admit that they are take more and more and more in taxes every year and it really has nothing to do with the “value” of our homes?