Taylor looks to set tax rate on amount needed

Published 12:23 pm Wednesday, February 11, 2009

By By JOHN EBY / Vigilant/Argus
CASSOPOLIS – With 4.4 percent the inflation rate being used statewide to determine maximum taxable value for real and personal property, "This means that if you, like most people in Cass County, did not buy your home new last year, your tax bill will go up almost double the 2.3-percent increase last year," Commissioner David Taylor said last week on Thursday.
Taylor, D-Edwardsburg, addressing the Cass County Board of Commissioners on a topic which has provoked clashes before, continued, said, "We all know the value of real estate on Dec. 31 of last year – just a few months ago – was much lower than the value at Dec. 31, 2007. The taxable value of your property will go up 4.4 percent for tax purposes this year. This means that if Cass County does not lower its tax rate" in May, "We will most likely collect more taxes during 2009 than we thought we would collect and we'll collect more money than we budgeted to be necessary to run county government."
Last year, Taylor recalled, "I proposed that we cut our Cass County tax rate to 4.25 mills when we could see we were collecting more in taxes than our budget called for. Our administration gave each of us a position paper suggesting that if we lowered our tax rate to 4.25 mills for 2008, the Headlee (tax limitation) rules would prohibit us from restoring our tax rate back up to what it otherwise would have been for this year and that my suggestion to lower our tax collection by about $686,000 would cost us more than $3.6 million in lost taxes over the next five years."
"That information was not true," Taylor asserted. "Lowering taxes one year does not prohibit raising them back up the following year."
"My point is," Taylor said, "we will be facing the same issue this May. More importantly, the tax increase this year is going to be almost twice what it was last year. In these trying times, we need to set the tax rate based upon what we need – not the most we can get out of people."
While Taylor has pledged to "watch out for taxes which are higher than necessary," he added, "I do not know yet how much we will need. We do not yet have the total taxable value of all the property in Cass County because we have not had any Boards of Review in our townships. I do know, however, that we will be more than halfway through our accounting year before we are required to set our tax rate in May. We can set our rate knowing what we're doing and in view of how much money we need to operate."
Taylor reiterated his message from October about the Medical Care Facility and more than $600,000 "missing" from the cash balances.
Taylor missed the Jan. 22 meeting where Administrator Merri Terborgh and Dowagiac certified public accountant Rebecca Moore reviewed a Sept. 30, 2008, Plante Moran audit with the county board showing cash decreased $451,000, from $1,971,866 on Sept. 30, 2007, to $1,520,858 a year later.
Operating income showed a $755,000 erosion, from a profit of $86,589 to a $668,652 loss.
"It was confirmed I was correct in my observation," said Taylor, who reviewed a tape of the meeting. "Our Medical Care Facility operated at a loss of $668,000 last year. While we are all assured that the level of care at that facility will remain the finest in this area, as it always had been, I did not hear any mention of a change there back to a profitable basis of operation. The report was that a lot more needed to be done to get on the correct footing. If this is so, and our care facility is no longer a profitable operation, or even a break-even one, then we may not be able to reduce taxes this year. We need to take this into account in setting our tax rate."
Taylor's continued characterization of the Medical Care Facility loss as "missing" money irritated Vice Chairman Ron Francis, R-Cassopolis, and Commissioner Carl Higley Sr., R-Edwardsburg.
"We've discussed this more than once," Francis said. "Missing money is far different than accountable loss. We have a cash loss of $451,000 – not missing $668,000. There's a big difference."
"I agree with Ron," Higley commented. "I'm getting kind of tired of people telling us we're getting wrong figures" – particularly on a night when County Administrator Terry Proctor showed commissioners Cass County's 12th consecutive plaque for exceptional accounting.
"I definitely take exception to being accused of money being shorted in the Medical Care Facility," Higley said.
"If you'd been at the meeting and heard Merri Terborgh and Becky Moore, I think you might have a different outlook. Those things have been remedied or are being remedied and part of them were the fault of the state – not of the facility. I hope this will end that kind of accusation."