Saturday, April 25, 2009

Peoria - More Taxes

The JS reminds us that our tax bills will be coming out starting next week and will include new taxes for the $27 million library expansion, thanks, folks, and new taxes from the Airport Authority. Also, coming soon is the $76.67 additional tax to pay for the new bonds, this go-around of maybe $38 million translated at interest of 5.7 over 15 years to approximately $60 million overall. And this is just the beginning.

Peoria County expects to take in more property tax dollars this year and next year which means every bodies property tax will be substantially boosted and each year property taxes can only go one way and that is up as health and pensions cost accelerate.

Just as a reminder for those of you eager to vote for more taxes, libraries, museums, park districts, schools, Gateway Building, etc., are all tax collecting bodies, not tax paying bodies. Translation - the more of these we build the more property taxes you will eventually pay and don't count the PRM, soon to be owned by Peoria County, as not being immune from hitting property tax payers, sometime over the upcoming years. Peoria County will own the museum after Jan. 1, 2010. If projections are not met, the county could help fund the endowment, etc., which means the counties shortfall could be made up in raised fees or increasing the tax levy as part of the county doing business.

Another reminder, again, while all this spending has been going on median income statewide grew by 3.5% from 2005-2006 while Peoria's region fell by over 1.0%. Over the past 7 years, Illinois had a population growth of 3.25 while Peoria's region grew only 1.2% (Study, Heart of Illinois United Way)

We sure must be doing a lot of things right, oops, I meant wrong, right here in Peoria.

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