We are a city of fourteen thousand, with a public school district, and a college campus, and so have grown used to the idea that almost everything costs a million dollars or more. People in the know say that these large sums are just the cost of doing business, as though government were really in the business of doing business.
We spend several million dollars to fund our small city each year. Millions for a city budget, millions for a water utility, millions more for a stormwater utility, and yet millions more to fund tax incremental districts within town.
At the request of our common council, our tax levy for the new budget is slightly less than the current one. One might think that a levy at the same level as this year, during a deep recession, would be imprudent.
Imprudence, though, is a relative term. Initially, our city manager proposed an increase in the levy, albeit less than the maximum the law allowed. I suppose this was his way of being frugal, by proposing and increase less than it might have been, but I don’t know with certainty.
He seemed surprised, to me, at the council session in which he learned that the council might prefer no increase in the levy at all.
I don’t know if our city manager has his ear to the ground (or even if that really works), but I do know it should be no surprise to favor a smaller levy during business closings and high unemployment.
The details of our 2010 budget are available through a story from a nearby newspaper:
Whitewater council approves property tax levy below 2008’s
One could have expected three contentions to come out of the budget process, and sure enough, they all did.
First, Whitewater faced a shortfall of a few hundred thousand in her budget, and I have heard the effort to close the gap described in near-heroic terms.
If a chef set fire to a kitchen, one would consider it noteworthy that he was able to douse the fire; it might not hurt to ask, afterward, how he set fire to the kitchen in the first place.
Second, it is true that the absolute amount of the levy was reduced, as the headline of the article to which I have linked declares.
Unfortunately, residents do not feel a levy, but rather a net tax rate.
It’s true that the tax levy is slightly less than last year, owing to the insistence of our common council that it not increase over the 2008 level.
It’s also true that the majority of city residents, living in the Walworth County portion of the city, will see an increase in their net tax rate:
“Brunner noted that the estimated net tax rate when combined with other taxing jurisdictions, including the Whitewater Unified School District, county taxes, technical college taxes, and state forestry taxes, will be $18.911 in 2009 (up from $17.72) for the Walworth County part of Whitewater….”
Astonishing, really, that even in difficult times, the combination of tax rates for most of Whitewater will increase.
There’s a third predictable contention, that one cannot imagine how one might cut still more:
“Brunner commented on the budget after the vote.
“We worked very hard to do this,” he said. “The council was very strong about not increasing the levy this year because of the tough economic times our citizens face. We cut over $300,000 in this budget to get the levy down below what it was last year. We have reduced some capital expenses, and we have frozen management salaries for a year and a number of other things, as well. I do not know how long we can do this, but this is the second year in a row that we have been able to hold the line.”
When one commits to capital project after capital project, after a while I’m sure it’s impossible to imagine less spending.
Municipal spending, as with all government spending, sets an ever-higher floor, but contemplates scarcely any ceiling.
If one cannot imagine reductions in a small town, then I cannot imagine where one might find them.
Pointing to a reduction in the levy, as a headline, ignores the increasing burden of taxation (and beyond it, regulation) in small-town America.
It’s not Los Angeles, surely, but then it doesn’t need to be.
Although bureaucrats may take pride – and pad their resumes – with large budgets and impressive-sounding projects, the gap between their ambitions and a small town’s burdens is the gap that truly matters.