[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

[Nick Kaufman]

Thanks Jed,
 
There are a couple of theories in public finance that justify using the
assessed value of a parcel.  With regard to police and fire protection,
the higher value properties require a bit more protection.  Responding
to a fire in a single family home may not involve the same level of
effort or equipment and man power as responding to a fire in a
multi-story apartment building in the downtown.  
 
The other reasoning is familiar to us all and is used for certain taxes
like income taxes, the more you make the more tax you pay.  We do not
all pay fixed equal taxes, that would be regressive because lower
incomes cannot afford the same taxes as a middle or upper incomes.  This
concept derives from being part of a society.  With regard to
maintenance districts, it is not so much the equity of the service that
sets the rate of assessment but the higher income folks usually own
higher value property and can afford to pay a bit more tax for the
service.  Hope this helps.
 
 
Nick Kaufman
Vice President , Principal Planner
WGM Group, Inc.
http://www.wgmgroup.com <http://www.wgmgroup.com/> 

 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Jed Taylor
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 4:53 PM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09


Thanks.  I guess what I'm wondering is whether anyone knows the
reasoning behind why assessed valuation is so widely considered the
preferred method.  It seems to me that of three methods (assessed,
square footage, and parcel), assessed valuation is the least fair, since
what a taxpayer receives in services from his local government has
little relation to what his house is worth, especially relative to
others in different neighborhoods within the city.
 


________________________________

From: Jim McGrath [mailto:jmcgrath at missoulahousing.org] 
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 10:42
To: Jed Taylor; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: RE: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09



I'll take a stab.

Taxes are based the way they are because that is how state law -in all
states-is written.

Districts can be assessed using several formula's - frontage, value, or
by parcel -each property assessed the same.

The governing body chooses.

Each technique is 'fair' and each technique has winners and losers.

 

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Jed Taylor
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 10:25 AM
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

 

Why are property taxes based on assessed valuation and not square
footage?  Isn't the case that maintenance districts are assessed by
square footage without regard to assessed valuation?

 

 

 

________________________________

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Bob Jaffe
Sent: Friday, May 22, 2009 08:09
To: Eric Taylor; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

There probably will be some tendency to say that taxes are not going up
if we drop the general fund mills even though we are replacing it with a
maintenance district. It's possible that the swap will in fact be a wash
but also likely there will be an increase. Folks have been wanting
greater investment in a number of areas that maintenance districts can
help. I'm not sure if the added specificity as to where the money will
be spent will be enough to make an increase palatable.

At our last meeting Mr. Hendrickson said that we shouldn't ask for more
taxes until we cleaned our own house a little better. I believe he is
suggesting that there is more money to be had through efficiencies and
savings. I'm hoping he brings forward something specific enough for us
all to discuss in a way that fits into the protocol of how the budget
gets processed. 

 

 

 

________________________________

From: Eric Taylor [mailto:ectbo at hotmail.com]
Sent: Thu 5/21/2009 4:52 PM
To: Bob Jaffe; missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: RE: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

<<according to my crystal ball there will be maintenance districts on
our tax bills this November.>>

<<Bottom line is that they are proposing to keep taxes static.>>

If I understand this correctly, the tax bill we receive in the mail this
November- the amount we will be required to pay in FY 2010 will go up,
but it is not because of higher taxes. It is because of the soon to be
referred and approved maintenance district(s).

<<We are the only major city in Montana that has not structured its
taxes this way.>>

Your tax bill will go up, but we did not raise taxes. This sounds like
administrative election year magic to me. 

________________________________

Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 21:59:09 -0600
From: BJaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us
To: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 5/20/09

Greetings,

We started the day late with PAZ at ten. Our first item was to look at a
few modifications to the Mill Site project. There were a couple of minor
plat amendments and a phasing plan. The new phasing plan calls for the
bulk of the project to be built in 2012 with the northwest portion being
built in 2015. We also learned that the stadium parking lot will be
built this summer as well as the trail connection to California street.
The MRA board is considering putting the whole park development out to
bid for construction this summer. Bonding and Bidding environments may
be good enough right now to support getting the whole thing done up
front. We are going to get a more detailed update on all that in
Conservation.

 

One of the sticking points in the project has been the road under the
tracks connecting to Cregg lane.  Way back when, the bridge was built to
go over a log pond. Not a road. So now that they want to put a big road
with lots of traffic under it, MRL is saying no deal.  They want the
developer to build them a new bridge to the tune of a million bucks.  We
learned that negotiations had progressed to where the developer was on
board with this idea and just needed to figure out how to pay for it.
Otherwise the holdup is just deciding when it is the right time to pull
the trigger.  Once they start they will need to make millions of dollars
of additional investment in infrastructure before they can sell the
first lot.  They need to be confident that the market is ready before
they start the process rolling. It turns out that they are lucky DEQ
stalled the project for an extra year because otherwise there is a good
chance they would have poured all that money in right before the market
cooled down and the whole thing could have gone bust.

 

Next was setting the public hearing to consider RLD 4 zoning for the
Gables subdivision in Orchard Homes. We approved this subdivision a
couple of years ago. There was a successful zoning protest and a
supermajority was not there to support the zoning. So it was annexed and
subdivided with no zoning in place.  Then the developer never built the
thing and the plat is scheduled to expire next week. He has indicated
that he would like to do mini-storage units on the site. Last week his
attorney, Alan McCormick, sent us a letter indicating we had no right to
try to regulate what he did with the property since it is not zoned. So
we decided to go ahead and zone it.

For now the proposal is for interim zoning of RLD 4 which is what the
original proposal called for. Then we will send it through the formal
process with planning board to establish permanent zoning.

The developer's representative, Nick Kaufman of WGM group, was there to
explain that they were indeed looking at a mini-storage project for the
site. They intend to work with the neighbors to develop a proposal and
come in with a PUD request.  Dave had some choice words as to his
feelings on mini-storage facilities. I can't find the quote but it was
something to the effect of 'vile scourge on the landscape.' Regardless
of the varying opinions on these places the committee members voted to
set the public hearing to establish interim zoning.

 

Our next item was an update from Mike Barton and Roger Millar on the
work plan and work load at OPG. Urban initiatives has pretty much the
same stuff going on next year except they budgeted a bunch of time to
develop an Agriculture lands policy. Roger did a presentation on the OPG
workload through the first three quarters of FY09. The gist is that
things are slower than last year but this last quarter has picked up
substantially. Overall fee revenue is down something like 7%. Not really
that bad considering what is going on in other places around the
country. The powerpoint will be attached to the PAZ minutes and is worth
looking at if you are into that stuff.

 

In A&F we took up the maintenance district discussion. We discussed this
on the list a couple of weeks ago. The basic idea is that we have the
authority to set up maintenance districts to tax people for certain
stuff like maintaining the roads or the parks or the trees and a few
other things. These districts can be for very small areas or for the
whole city.  The appeal of maintenance districts is that they are
outside of our mill levy cap. The legislature, in its infinite wisdom,
has prohibited us from raising our general fund mill levy by more than
half the rate of inflation. This of course means that we eventually go
broke. Maintenance districts give us the ability to cost shift a bunch
of stuff outside of this limitation. We are the only major city in
Montana that has not structured its taxes this way. There is definitely
some controversy here but according to my crystal ball there will be
maintenance districts on our tax bills this November.

 

There were two good items in Public Works. We set the public hearing for
an SID to finally do some traffic calming on Philips street.  There will
be a few of these things that make you curve right and then left when
you go through the intersection. They seem to work and the fire trucks
can get through them OK. There will also be a bunch of bulb outs near
the school as part of the safe routes to school program.

We also directed staff to come up with some proposals for reducing the
speed limit on Reserve street near the CS Porter school. DOT did a
traffic study and determined that we can set it as low as 30 MPH and
they offered to pay for the various signing facilities. There are a
number of options on how exactly we want to implement this so staff is
going to work on it and bring back a package for us to take through the
process. School representatives were there to encourage us to make the
reductions full time instead of just during specific hours since they
have events going on all day every day. They also offered special thanks
to Jim Hausauer and Reggie Bardgett for pushing this effort forward.

 

In Budget Committee of the Whole (BCOW) the Mayor presented the
administrative budget for FY2010.  Lots of other press on this so I'm
not going to dwell on it too much. Bottom line is that they are
proposing to keep taxes static. It all works because we had a reduction
of $450,000 in our General Obligation bond payments and they are
proposing to cut the contribution to the employee health plan by
$500,000. Magic! We pick up $950,000 to keep the general fund solvent
without raising taxes. The administration argues that the health fund is
in plenty good shape without the money but it sounds like the police
union may be feeling a bit more protective about the employer
contribution. It is currently about $680 per month per employee. It
would go down $100 per month with the administration's proposal. More to
come on this in the next few weeks. Budget details can be found here:

ftp://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/documents/Council_Review_FY10_Operating_Budg
et/Operating%20Budget/

 

 

Thanks for your interest, 

 

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward 3

bjaffe at ci.missoula.mt.us

406-728-1052

Messages and attachments sent to or from this e-mail account pertaining
to City business may be considered public or private records depending
on the message content. The City is often required by law to provide
city records to individuals requesting records, some of which are not
public records and have limited scope of distribution pursuant to state
law. The City is required by law to protect private, confidential
information. This message is intended for the use of the individual or
entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this
transmission, please notify the sender immediately, do not forward the
message to anyone, and delete all copies. Thank you.

 

________________________________

Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail(r). See how.
<http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_T
utorial_QuickAdd1_052009>  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.cmslists.com/pipermail/missoulagov/attachments/20090528/7daab404/attachment.htm>