LST reader and commenter "Maltboy!" (gotta love the name) brought this one to our attention. The Citizen, a small local newspaper, reports Kemah’s enormous tax hikes:
Kemah City Council passed a $3.573 million budget during its Sept. 29 meeting, while also slightly raising property tax rates from $.172 to $.208545 per $100 valuation.
Slightly? That’s more than 21%. Try calling a 21% hike in anything else "slight." That’s like a gallon of gas going from $2.89 to $3.50, or an August day going from 96 to 116 degrees, or the federal speed limit going from 70 to 85.
21 percent is not slight. Of course, if we’re talking about less government, the situation is dire:
The city slashed the municipal court budget by $30,172, bringing that department’s total budget to $211,661.
That’s a 12.5% "slash," while a 21 percent tax hike (that’s before appraisal creep) is "slight."
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That’s because the reporter is likely a liberal who does not own a home. He’s a liberal journalist out to save the world from republicans, though he’s still just reporting for this small paper until he finds his own personal Watergate lead.
See, he thinks that since it’s only 3 cents per $100 evaluation, that is “slightly.”
I guarantee he is a liberal who lives in an apartment and does not pay property taxes directly.
Perhaps the writer said slight increase because even at the raised $.208/$100 rate, the city taxes in Kemah are still by a fair margin the lowest city property taxes in all of Gavleston County. They are likely amongst the lowest in the State.
So ANY increase is gigantic in PERCENTAGE terms. Here therefore is a case where such statistics appears to mislead.
So let’s put some real numbers to the percentages. With the approved increase, a homeowner wiht a $100,000 home goes from paying $172 to $208. A whopping $36 increase a year, or $3/month.
Keeping in mind that Kemah residents already have the city pay for their garbage collection, previously about a $15/month expense, and you can argue that average Kemah residents pay VERY little CITY tax.
They do pay a lot of total tax, because of very stiff school and water district taxes. The county tax is about average, but overall these add up to a fairly high burden. But if anything, I’d say Kemah is to be appauded to levy such a small portion of their resident’s total tax burden, while delivering a very nice little town in the bargain.
I’m just across the border from Kemah, but agree with the above poster. This is really not be a big issue, unless one is generally opposed to the notion of citizens paying taxes in the first place - and they are many in number, I am sure. All together now, Kemah residents, say “thank you, Tilman Fertitta” as you open your tax bills.
Sanity and Doobie, I hear what you’re saying. But read the article, and you’ll see that the rationale for the $100,000 property tax increase (over and above the increase due to population growth and appraisal creep) was a $13,000 sales tax shortfall. That’s nonsense. It’s like trying to borrow 100 grand on a Honda Civic. It just won’t work in real life.
Doobie, you’re setting up a straw man. My point was that a 21 percent tax rate hike is not “slight.” You turned that into a suggestion that I’m against taxation altogether. That’s nonsense. I’m fully aware that some measure of tax is necessary to maintain public safety, utilities, building codes, and so on.
My point is this: if a measurable quantity — of anything — goes up 21 percent, it’s either dishonest or stupid to call that a “slight” increase.
If the Fertitta machine is such a wonderful revenue generator for the city, why do they need to raise taxes at all? Answer: Because the burden caused by that machine has resulted in a need to hire more police and expand the city’s administrative function. Rest assured this will be the first of many HUGE tax hikes needed to address the strain placed on Kemah’s infrastructure by the very entity that was supposed to protect it from such increases.
Sanity, pardon me for being blunt, but you sound like a shill. Do you work for the city of Kemah or some other entity that would benefit from such an increase? What you fail to mention is that every time that council overestimates the predicted sales tax revenue they will have to raise property taxes to make up for it.
DoobieBro, only a bro’ who has smoked one too many doobies could rationalize that the citizens of Kemah should be thankful for a 21% tax hike.
Matt,
You take “slight” to mean a small percentage increase, and the two previous posters are (rightly) pointing out that slight refers to the end amount, which is fairly small.
An example. A person currently gives no money to charity. They make a “slight” increase and give a buck to the Red Cross. Clearly a “slight” increase in charitable giving would be a generous term, yet by your logic, we should hail it as an INFINITE increase!
Tim, let’s assume you’re right, just for the sake of argument. If a $100,000 increase is slight, why is a $30,000 reduction a slash?
Now I really am continuing purely for the sake of argument here…
But the tax rate increase is slight from the point of view of those who would be spending the money. As someone pointed out, $3 a month or something like that for a $100,000 home. This increase, for those spending the money, is slight. Slight for each individual person, lots of people, and it adds up to a fairly large overall revenue increase.
The decrease, on the other hand, for those that would be spending the municipal budget, does represent a drastic decrease. It’s a smaller decrease, sure, but it’s all centered in a smaller affeted area as well.
It’s all perspective. From the homeowner’s perspective, the property tax increase could easily be perceived as slight, because the end dollar impact is quite small. The impact on day-to-day life is minimal. For the municipal courts, a 12.5% reduction would invariably mean a lot more.
That said, I’d be stunned if the author of the article thought about ANY of this when choosing those words. Hardly a conspiracy to whitewash the issue, methinks.
Let me chime in and say the citizens of kemah are not the cause of the short fall so they should not pay ANY more. I know it’s low taxes here but it’s walmart and the waterfront causing the need for more police and city services and they should carry the load not the small population of this town. Even before Walmart and the boardwalk Kemah taxes were low and they should stay that way.
Tim, you’re talking about dollar amounts. The dollar amount is not a rate.
The article characterized the rate increase as slight. The rate went up 21 percent. Sure, the dollar amount is a few bucks a month. Maybe that’s slight, on an individual basis. But the increase in the tax rate was far from slight.
Shill. Hmmm.
Well, I think the item has been pretty well talked through, and good points offered.
When all the talking is through, though, I guess I can only offer that those who can find a lower tax rate than Kemah in Galveston or the surrounding areas are welcome to try and find them, especially when coupled with the astounding quick and responsive police, ambulance, and fire services, and as mentioned before, the free trash pickup.
Add in the quaint small town/family atmosphere and quality of life issues (granted the traffic and especially parking at times can be a pain), and I say the residents get a bargain.
Oops. Guess I’m sounding like a shill again. Admittedly I’m a booster of Kemah. I truly believe in it. It’s why I live there.
And again to the bottom line, those that don’t feel that way for taxes or any other reason are always going to vote with their feet.