| By OHliz - May 18th, 2009 at 12:59 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Female political bloggers |
Categories: Budget Priorities, Economic Fairness and Security, Primary and Secondary Education, Peace and Armed Conflict, Property Rights, Public Infrastructure / Transportation, Front Page
Franklin County Treasurer Edward Leonard sent us a shocking bill recently. Sure, we were expecting this statement of Real Estate Taxes for 2nd Half 2008. But still, it's the kind of large invoice that elicits a WTF? reaction.
My husband -- a rare combination of tax expert as well as middle-aged hottie -- explained to me how property taxes are calculated. I will not attempt to explain the Reduction Factor and other stuff myself. But from what I gather, if we had to pay the fully-loaded tax rate on the true market value of our homes, few of us could afford to be homeowners.
You can thank Gov. Gilligan for the 10% rollback. This was instituted in 1973 when the state started collecting income tax, as a way to appease Ohio property owners. Kind of a give-back.
According to The Dispatch, property tax appeals have reached record levels this year. If you can prove your property is worth less than the county figures, more power to you.
Frankly, it's all very mysterious to me. With so many types of taxes -- Federal Income, State Income, RITA, sales, property and so forth -- it's hard to get a big-picture perspective on what you're paying to whom for what purpose. It's so much easier to embrace the Republican mantra: Taxes, bad; tax cuts, good.
At least with property taxes, it is possible to know roughly where your money is going. I believe our tab is typical for Franklin County: For Schools, 65%; City (includes police and fire departments), 9%; Ohio Department of Mental Retardation & Developmental Disabilities, 8.5%; Children Services, 5%; Franklin County Board of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health, 3%; Library, 2.8% (had a recent local levy passed, it would have raised the library tax by 37%); Senior Options, 1.2%; and less than 1% each for the Zoo and Parks. In our case we have a special assessment for streetlamps which amounts to 1.5% of the total property tax bill.
So what are our property taxes actually paying for? Teachers and social workers, mostly.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. It beats funding two wars.
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