Property tax relief: dinner for four at McDonalds
Four council members are looking to trim San Antonio’s property tax rate during the upcoming budget negotiations. Three of them — Diane Cibrian, John Clamp and Kevin Wolff — represent the North Side.
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Wolff has proposed cutting the city’s rate by a penny to 56.85 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, as well as substantially bolstering its “rainy day” fund to deal with future shortfalls.
If adopted Sept. 13, when the council sets the tax rate for fiscal year 2008, the cut would mean a savings of $12.67 to the average homeowner. All told, the reduction would remove an estimated $6.2 million from the general fund, according to the city’s management and budget office.
If my council member is willing to cut taxes to save me $12.67, I’ll make an effort to help her find the $6.2 million to cut from the budget. I’ll admit that my home value is somewhat more than the average home (although not nearly the value of Cibrian’s) so I’ll be able to take the family out for a fast food dinner if we don’t biggee size anything.
But where to start to find the six million? I’ve downloaded the 2007 budget but that’s almost 900 pages to plow through. Sorry, 18 bucks doesn’t buy that kind of dedication on my part.
Never mind, I’ve got super junk yard dog, Roddy Stinson, who wants the rest of the city to look like a junk yard (unless they can pay for it themselves or promise to genuflect at least three times a day in the general direction of the north side.) One of his recent columns points out the incredible mismanagement by the “artsy-fartsy” crowd. You see, junk yards don’t need no stinkin art to be a good place to live.
No matter, it looks like that these “politically connected arts/cultural organizations” have been less than diligent in accounting for their money. According to a recent audit, the city reimbursed over $700,000 in the past two years with adequate documentation. And apparently we’re not talking a missing lunch receipt here, it’s 12 reimbursements for $410,195.
That does seem pretty pathetic. I know that the artistic type don’t have the reputation of being financial wunderkids but come on, they chose to take the money, they do need to be accountable for it.
Oh my God, I just agreed with Roddy Stinson on something! I would like to point out though, lack of documentation doesn’t necessarily mean that the city has been “ripped-off.” It means that the artsy-fartsy crowd can’t proved they haven’t ripped the city off.
Oh well, maybe it is the time to teach them a lesson and eliminate the Cultural Affairs fund. This would have saved the city $6,867,010 during 2007, more than enough to cover my family’s free lunch at Whataburger. Plus, it saves Diane Cibrian and cohorts the trouble of digging through the budget looking for cost savings measures. And maybe the arts crowds will start remembering to get receipts.
What a deal. Sounds perfect doesn’t it? Maybe, except it looks like that for every dollar spent leverages anywhere from four to eight additional dollars that comes from outside the city. So if we cut the six million dollars, we will be loosing at least twice that in outside funds (paying city employees doesn’t leverage anything.) Furthermore, if these artsy-fartsy events draw people from outside of San Antonio, we’re also loosing the opportunity to wring some cash out of them through our hotel tax, sales tax, and so on.
I’ve got it, golf! Stinson pointed out that the latest audit found all kinds of problems with the city’s golf operations. And whose going to want to go to Brackenridge when they can play a PGA course over the aquifer? This year’s budget was $6,413,114, almost the perfect number to fund every homeowner’s dinner out.
And let’s face it, if you can only afford to play at Brackenridge, you can’t have a whole lotta political clout with the city so who cares? The users are probably just a lot of retired people, you know, the type Roddy is always looking out for so that they aren’t over burden with property taxes.
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Filed under: Cultural Arts fund, Diance Cibrian, John Clamp, Kevin Wolff, Roddy Stinson, San Antonio, golf, property tax relief
