On January 25th, County administration, directed by the Board of Commissioners (BOC) convinced the Library Advisory Committee to abandon the 1% Income Tax Proposal for backfilling lost revenues from timber receipts.
They did so using three points:
1. It would take the county a year to draft county tax law to accommodate an income tax.
Fact: They have a year. It is now January, and a tax code does not need to be in place until January of 2008. Further, why would the county want to hire a tax attorney to draft tax law until they know what voters want? First, you ask voters if they want an income tax, then, if they do, you hire the appropriate professionals to draft the law.
2. The Oregon Department of Revenue (DOR) has been less than enthusiastic about helping O&C Counties to implement a local income tax.
Fact: Representative Buckley is dropping legislation this week directing the DOR to work with counties willing to help themselves.
3. This hurdle will be addressed in this legislative session—with or without Jackson County helping itself. The Department of Revenue wants 10% of the revenues to collect and enforce a local income tax.
Fact: 90% of $30 million is a whole lot more than 90% of nothing. The DOR knows that a local income tax is deductible on both state and federal income taxes and they want to keep state coffers intact. Ten percent pretty well covers that.
CW Smith and Jack Walker do not want to place an income tax measure before the voters because they’re worried it will pass and they don’t want to be in the library business. Fact is they ran for and were elected to a job that included running libraries. If they do not want to do that, they should not have run for that office.
By convincing the Library Advisory Board to jump from an income tax to a serial levy, the Board of Commissioners effectively moved library closures from their laps and placed it in the laps of library supporters. After all, the BOC can now say that they not only “did something” to fix the problem, but did what the Library Advisory Committee wanted.
But have they done anything?
No. A double majority has never been reached in this election cycle and when the serial levy doesn’t get a double majority, national media will be looking at the voters in Jackson County rather than the BOC as to why.
They did so using three points:
1. It would take the county a year to draft county tax law to accommodate an income tax.
Fact: They have a year. It is now January, and a tax code does not need to be in place until January of 2008. Further, why would the county want to hire a tax attorney to draft tax law until they know what voters want? First, you ask voters if they want an income tax, then, if they do, you hire the appropriate professionals to draft the law.
2. The Oregon Department of Revenue (DOR) has been less than enthusiastic about helping O&C Counties to implement a local income tax.
Fact: Representative Buckley is dropping legislation this week directing the DOR to work with counties willing to help themselves.
3. This hurdle will be addressed in this legislative session—with or without Jackson County helping itself. The Department of Revenue wants 10% of the revenues to collect and enforce a local income tax.
Fact: 90% of $30 million is a whole lot more than 90% of nothing. The DOR knows that a local income tax is deductible on both state and federal income taxes and they want to keep state coffers intact. Ten percent pretty well covers that.
CW Smith and Jack Walker do not want to place an income tax measure before the voters because they’re worried it will pass and they don’t want to be in the library business. Fact is they ran for and were elected to a job that included running libraries. If they do not want to do that, they should not have run for that office.
By convincing the Library Advisory Board to jump from an income tax to a serial levy, the Board of Commissioners effectively moved library closures from their laps and placed it in the laps of library supporters. After all, the BOC can now say that they not only “did something” to fix the problem, but did what the Library Advisory Committee wanted.
But have they done anything?
No. A double majority has never been reached in this election cycle and when the serial levy doesn’t get a double majority, national media will be looking at the voters in Jackson County rather than the BOC as to why.
2 comments:
In 1996 the voters approved a levy dedicated to LIBRARIES and HUMAN SERVICES. That levy got folded into the general fund and it is now the base support for jails and sheriff patrol.
How about we say to the Commissioners that the voters have spoken. They already voted support for the Library and Human Services. That money is morally reserved for those purposes. The agencies that need to go out and sell their services are the Sheriff department. Yes, they are essential. I would vote for any realistic sheriff levy. The Commissioners need only say that the public decides what is really important and the public decided on the ten or so million for libraries, so now let's see what the public wants on corrections.
If it is good "woe is me" material to say that "the libraries are closing!" think how persuasive it would be to say that the sheriff's department is closing.
In 1983 the sheriff's deputies went out to the voters and asked for a special levy and it FAILED, worse than did the library levy last November.
It is unfair for the Commissioners to have slid library-voted money to pay for sheriffs. The voters will, expressed in 1996, was not respected.
If we are going to pass levies here in Jackson County, I don't think we can with the eager support of a citizens' group. We also need the full throated support of the commmissioners, the county department heads, the Sheriff and his employees. Walker, CW Smith, and Mike Winters are hemming and hawing and giving the faintest of support for the taxes needed to run the county. That is outrageous! Do they really think that libraries are a silly frill? Well, shame on them. Meantime, let's remind them that libraries got their levy and the voters will must be respected, even if they think jails are important and libraries not. Jails don't have a record of voter support and libraries do, so let's tell them to go out there and sell a "Public Safety" levy.
Dear Cathy,
I like your proposed MMT submission very much. As you may know, I am the author of the Comment to your Open Democracy most recent post, under the name "Concerned Citizen", the one that reminded citizens that the Library HAS (not had) secure voter support.
What I want is for the public safety community: the Commissioners, Sheriff, the city police chiefs, the probation people, etc. to get out there to look the citizens in the eye and say "we need money for essential services." Or if they don't think we need taxes for those things, then, fine, let them say to the public that we don't really need to pay for more patrols, more probation people, more jailers, and that public safety won't suffer enough to bother with higher taxes.
My own view is that there is still lack of leadership consensus on the Commissioner/Sherrif/Budget Committee front. They are mumbling about whether or not we need things, they are making vague comments about how if we simply (simply!!) cut more trees we wouldn't have a funding problem. In that environment then of course the public is uncertain. If County Budgeteers gave the libraries some or all of their due--plus human services theirs, because we must not forget the visible effort they made to the 1996 levy as well--if the Budgeteers made the point that voter authorized money for libraries and human services was PREVENTION money and very well spent, and then get out there and describe the additional public safety need and the public safety costs, then maybe the public would be both educated and persuaded.
My deepest offense is the weak, soft, lack of support for county services provided by County leadership, including Budget Committee members and the Sheriff. If they really thought some of County government was unnecessary and wasteful and easy to do without and to cut then they should have cut it LAST year and the year before that, and returned unnecessary money to the taxpayers. County officials should take moral and political responsibility for their own budget.
A county library system is far more effecient and fair than a patchwork of city libraries, where 35% of the populartion is outside the cities, untaxed but freeloading off the cities. The leadership weakness here isn't an issue of who should "do the library business" but one of WHETHER to do it, or rather whether to pay for it. The commissioners are taking voter suported library money and diverting it. If they really don't think libraries are important, if they really think the county should get "out of the library business" then they should have returned the money to the taxpayers, or do so right now, so that there is more local property tax money set free and returned to the taxpayers. Then, knowing the responsibility (AND THE POTENTIAL MONEY TO FULFILL THE RESPONSIBILITY) has been passed to the cities, the cities can bring the issue to their citizens for a city vote. Then city residents would likely one at a time revote dedicated city library money. It would be a powerful campaign argument: this isn't a new tax. It is a replacement tax.
Obviously, county leaders are not suggesting this. Maybe we library supporters should. "Give back the money, County, so the Cities can vote their own libraries!"
Such a campaign would clarify for the public that the Budget Committee is DIVERTING county library money, not simply making policy choices that jails are more critical than libraries.
The Budget Committee, Commissioners, and Sheriff are combining misunderstanding of county history, with devaluing the public safety and educational benefits of libraries, with political chickenheartedness, by not having the courage to talk straight to the citizens about why the county has a funding lack and the money we need. The job of county leaders (Commissoners and Sheriff, all of them) is to understand the problem and educate the public, and they are doing neither.
Peter Sage
Concerned Citizen
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