Truth is Often Hard to Come By

Truth is Often Hard to Come By!

by Ron West

During elections, the incumbents in North Richland Hills, Texas proudly proclaim that they are holding the rate on property taxes to try to make you think that they are not raising taxes. Often their proclamations slide into verbiage that openly tries to lead you to believe that they are financially wiser and more prudent than anyone who challenges their judgment.

Recent changes in Texas State Law are forcing at least the printed word to reflect what the local politicians are actually doing. The new wording helps a lot but still leaves a lot of information obscured to their benefit.

On September 11th, 2006, the NRH City Council will raise taxes for the 14th straight year! This is specifically documented by the wording of the ordinance - as required by State Law - that will be unanimously passed by the council. Remember that dissention is not tolerated on this council.

The following extracts are laboriously taken from the NRH Council Agenda which is coded to prevent any simple copy and print or copy and transfer to normal documents. Obviously they do not want you to comment on their specific actions - the process involves using optical character recognition to make these quotes so the format only, is different from that on the city's web pages.

First: The wording of the Ordinance setting the tax rate to increase taxes. (Highlighting Added)

_______________ CITY OF NORTH RICHLAND HILLS
        Department: Budget Council Meeting Date: 9-11-2006
        Presented by: Drew Corn Agenda No.F.3
        Subject: GN 2006-080 Adopting the Rate for Tax Year 2006 - Ordinance No. 2905

The notice of effective tax rate was published in the Star Telegram newspaper on August 8, 2006; the notice of public hearing on the tax increase, on August 17, 2006; and the notice of vote on tax rate, on August 29, 2006 all in accordance with State law. In addition, the notice of public hearing on the tax increase and the notice of vote on the tax rate were posted on the City’s website and carried on Citicable in accordance with State law.
The proposed 2006/2007 tax rate for the City of North Rich land Hills is 570 per $100 of valuation. If approved, this will be the fourteenth year with a 57 cent tax rate. The proposed rate of 57 cent is an increase of 0.358% over the effective tax rate. The proposed rate of 57 cents is broken down into two parts as follows:

34.69510 for the purposes of maintenance and operations
22.30490 for the payment of principal and interest on debt of the City

Adoption of Ordinance No. 2905 would set the tax rate for fiscal year 2006/2007 at 57 cents per $100 valuation.

Recommendation:

State law requires the following motion to approve the tax rate: “I move that property taxes be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 57 cents per $100 valuation”, and adopt Ordinance No. 2905.

BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NORTH RICHLAND HILLS, TEXAS:

Section 1: THAT there shall be and there is hereby levied the following taxes on each One Hundred Dollars ($100.00) of valuation on all taxable property within the City of North Richland Hills, Texas, to be assessed and collected for the year 2006/2007 for the purposes hereinafter stipulated, to-wit:
                    (a) For operations and maintenance levied on the $100.00 valuation:
                    $0346951; and
                    (b) For the interest and sinking fund levied on the $100.00 valuation:
                    $0. 223049.
                    TOTAL: $0.570000
Section 2: THIS TAX RATE WILL RAISE MORE TAXES FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS THAN LAST YEARS TAX RATE.

THE TAX RATE WILL RAISE TAXES FOR MAINTENANCE AND OPERATIONS OF A $100,000.00 HOME BY APPROXIMATELY $2.63.

AND IT IS SO ORDAINED.

Obviously, the wording is still designed to make the increase look relatively small. Over a period of years, even small increases tend to add up to some really serious taxation if examined. Remember that this practice is being followed by virtually all taxing bodies. Recent actions by Birdville Independent School District showed that given the opportunity to gouge the tax payer, this area ranks among the highest! Their approved "tax relief" was about the smallest in the state.

Now looking at the real increase in NRH from last year to this year consider:

Certified real property values INCREASED by $147,108,419 from 2005 which will yield approximately $838,518 in NEW taxes to the city. This is a combination of both new construction and valuation increases on your property.

When analyzed though, certified valuations on personal property such as business equipment - decreased both in the number of accounts (lost business?) and in total valuation. Since Tarrant Appraisal District provides no insight on the why of this, the approximate net taxes on personal property will decrease by $123,035. The net effect of the tax increase this year to citizens of North Richland Hills is $715,483.

FACT: Since 1997 to 2006 valuations have increase a whopping 51.75% in NRH. City tax collections on real estate alone have increased by $8,472,442 per year! Like mentioned earlier, what appears to be small increases - over time - becomes serious money.

One can but wonder if Governor Perry's request that an independent commission look into appraisal districts has merit when you try to analyze what really is happening. Do special interests or special individuals get special treatment? Are some property owners singled out and penalized if they protest? Are values accurate or artificially inflated by computer programs? Are real conditions of property considered? Perhaps - most important - is our current method of valuation actually a "fair" way increasing taxation on all of us?

Regardless of our opinion of the appraisal process, the real purpose of this article is to provide factual proof that our NRH City Council has willfully and knowingly INCREASED our property taxes for the last 13 years and by their actions, indicate that they plan to continue the process in future years unless enough voters say "enough"!

Now the next step is to somehow get our elected officials to admit to their tax increasing actions and hopefully to get them to look at the unquestioned spending proposed by our local bureaucrats.