The Insatiable Tax Appetite of our Local Politicians

By: Ron C. West

The reason politicians give for the increasing "need" for more and more taxes is the "growth" of the area and its increasing demand for services. Right? Wrong!

In my continuing research regarding the money collected and spent in Northeast Tarrant County, I have come across some rather remarkable facts. To keep it simple, I would like to first position this information with two facts based on prior research of data readily available from the Texas State Comptrollers Office and from Tarrant Appraisal District:

These facts yield an INCREASE in property tax revenues of about 44% in property taxes over the past five years plus and increase in sales tax revenues of about 42% over the past five years. Folks, that is a LOT of money flowing into our city coffers. Obviously our local City Council members thought the cities needed the money more than we property owners and taxpayers did - but why?

Then it dawned on me to check out the population growth. I expected it would be far, far faster and more dramatic than this spectacular tax growth. Surely our elected officials would not unduly take our hard-earned money - would they?

So what about population growth over the past five years - for the same period of time as the above revenue growths occurred?

Whoops - looks like something is really wrong here. With average population growth of 10.44% over the five year period, why did our cities require 44% more property tax revenue and 42% more sales tax revenue? By these figures, property tax revenue increased 321% FASTER than population growth. Sales tax revenue increased only 302% FASTER!

Perhaps you are wondering where our wonderful local newspaper is on covering this growth of tax revenue. I tried to approach them on this issue only to face their classic question of what services I would cut. Please don't let anyone fool you with this question. First of all, anytime any politician is faced with having to reduce taxes he immediately looks at cutting the most visible services possible such as the Police and Fire Departments in order to create a public outcry. This usually creates enough noise from folks who have not become informed as to available revenues so that the politician does not have to cut back on his additional spending plans. We could all enjoy significant future reductions in taxes by simply SLOWING the growth of local government to 2 or 3% per year - without any necessity to cut ANY services at all!

Since we are coming upon very important local elections in May, perhaps we should be asking our local candidates what their positions are on taxation and spending. Maybe it is time we ask for a moratorium on new spending because it has really skyrocketed over the past five years. Maybe it is time we demand that the candidates actually state their views and intentions about future taxing plans.

For myself, I prepared the following list of questions for my local (NRH) city council people: (So far, they have avoided actually answering any of them.)

1. This year you voted for an 11.4% increase. Do you plan to continue to vote for increases of this magnitude? (Most cities in NE Tarrant County raised property tax revenues significantly.)

2. Do you plan to support the growth of city services and expenses at over an 8% annual rate? (NE Tarrant County Cities and School Districts have been raising property taxes at over an 8% rate per year for the past five years.)

3. Are you at all concerned about folks in our city on fixed incomes that are being taxed out of their homes? (School Districts have to freeze property taxes for senior citizens by state law. Cities and municipal tax districts do not have to do so at the present time.)

4. Are you aware of the fact that property taxes double in 7 years at your 11.4% rate? (It is probably true that most city council members have not even considered the impact of the compounding of the tax increases over any period of time.)

While I did get the following response from one councilman, I hardly think that I received and answer. These questions are included here for your own use and refinement as you see fit. Perhaps if we able to ask them face to face they would actually try to answer them.

At the March 26th meeting of the Haltom City - City Council briefing just prior to their regular meeting, Councilman John Patino submitted and item requesting that the council study and consider freezing the property taxes at the current level for taxpayers 65 and over. Unfortunately, no one else on the council would even second his motion to study the possibility. One councilman commented "that after all we have a city to run" which I think means they want to continue to collect all of the tax revenue possible from every possible source.

Would you believe that Property Taxes and Sales Taxes are not the only growth areas for city revenues? Impact fees, fines, water and utility services, licenses and etc., have all also grown dramatically over the past five years. The bottom line is that our local elected officials know that we are not paying attention. I hope we start paying attention soon because many of them seem to think that our money is really their money and they surely know how to spend it better than we do!