Your property taxes

An interesting article in the Gazette last week reviewed a discussion of the spending of the recent largess of a Cares Funding grant to our local District 17 School District. I wasn’t present and can only comment on the reportage of the Gazette’s Associate Editor.

The gift to the McCook Schools was reportedly $739,295 and it is federal aid to help cover losses due to the Covid Epidemic. According to Superintendent Grant Norgaard, 20% of the funding is mandated for summer programs and other efforts to address learning loss. All well and good. In your columnist’s opinion, the McCook Public Schools are to be complimented for their successful efforts to do in-school classes for all our students this entire school year.

Looking around the country with so many entities in the larger metropolitan areas not holding in-class sessions it was a brave and good decision by the locals to have classes as usual. Classes, sports and the works with modifications like masks, and separation were possible. Well done and my own family has benefited by including my grandchildren, California natives, enjoying the in-class sessions this year, all year. At their home in Orange County California school is virtual creating a burden on their parents to supervise the children who supposedly study from home via personal computer. It hasn’t worked out well out there.

Now the question is what to do with the 590,000 some dollars that don’t have strings attached? Sure there are some school-related projects that have been awaiting funds to accomplish and there is also a requirement to spend the funds within three years. What to do?

In my background are the eight years that I spent as County Commissioner. We, the county board, created our annual budget then oversaw the implementation of that budget. We also set the levy on the county’s real estate value to satisfy those budget needs. We commissioners, Eldon Moore in particular, were seen as a bit frugal and strongly resisted raising our levy from year to year. Sure it is easy, just with the stroke of the pen, to ever spend more money each year and keep raising the levy to pay for it but we resisted any frivolous spending. Also there is the effect that the budget is based upon what was actually spent last year so if the budget is increased there is a ratchet effect and all future budgets will go up. It seems to be written somewhere that taxes can never go down.

Those people that have to pay the annual county property tax resist loudly each time their levy is increased and I can’t blame them. Farming, the major enterprise in Red Willow County, is a highly speculative business. Make a profit or loss the owner of the real estate has to pay his real estate taxes. Also, be reminded that our school budget is by far the largest driver of how much real estate taxes are levied each year. Sure people dwelling in our towns also pay real estate taxes plus that levied to support the municipality also but by far it is our rural property that carries the largest share of the tax load. To my knowledge, there is no Cares money relief for our farmers.

Now based on my own past experience I would suggest that our school board resist spending the major portion of the Cares largess, hold it and use it to help pay for operations next year. That way the school levy can be drastically reduced to give all our property owners a bit of a breathing spell. Let’s keep an eye on what the school board decides to do with their Cares windfall and hopefully we can see some tax relief in the immediate future.

As most of you dear readers know the local airport is one of your writer’s first loves. Last week an interesting edict came down from on high that dictated that all persons on airport property, for an airport that is funded by federal (FAA) money, are required to wear masks and to do social distancing. If non-observance of that masking dictate is observed future funds for that airport will be withheld. To me that kind of dictate smacks of socialism in the worst way. Such thinking does not fit well in the mindset of this old long-time conservative person. I pray that our country will not continue to move in the direction where the people in power control us underlings by withholding the benefits of our tax dollars that we have no choice in having to pay.

That is how I saw it.

Dick Trail