Supervisors oblivious to citizens' misery

Editor:

The article on the front page of the Feb. 8 Daily Progress newspaper about current unemployment inspired me to appeal to the Madison County Board of Supervisors to reduce spending and try to reduce the tax rate.

In December 2007 the unemployment rate was 2.8 percent. That’s about normal for Madison. By November 2008, the rate was 4.1 percent. In December 2008 the rate increased to 4.8 percent.

The trend is clear — many more Madison County taxpayers are becoming unemployed, and the trend will continue through 2009.

In addition, many workers have had their hours reduced by as much as half or more. I know of one Madison worker who went from 80 hours on his two-week paycheck to 20 hours. My employees are working many hours less per pay period as well.

I subscribe to the U.S. Department of Labor e-mail newsletter, which supports the above statistics. I strongly recommend that each board member subscribe to the newsletter, too.

I derive from the statistics that the next time the county tax is due, five to 10 percent or more of the taxable citizens of the county will not be able to pay any of their tax bill. Many will chose to pay for food for their family, the mortgage, health care or the rent rather than county taxes. After all, they can be delinquent more than three years before the county “sends Bubba after them.”

It should also be pointed out that any increase in the people’s tax rate will be calculated based on the recent astronomically inflated property assessment. A one-cent increase now will be considerably more dollars than it would have been by the old assessment.

Incidentally, I recently had my home appraised. Because of current crisis, the value dropped seven percent below what it was five years ago. It is $99,000 (27 percent) below the county assessment.

If the board of supervisors chooses to ignore the plight of the people and raises taxes, there will surely be a considerable fiscal shortfall. You can double the tax rate, but if no one can pay the dollars, there will be no dollars to spend. The budget cuts will then happen by default.

It is much wiser to plan now and choose where we will cut spending. We must, also, give strong consideration to reducing the burden on the citizens during the current crisis. That is what government is supposed to do. Temporarily living with the reduced services for a year or two will be much less severe than suddenly running out of funds in the middle of the budgeted period.

This letter is not intended to be negative criticism or abuse. It is a realistic heartfelt appeal to the board of supervisors to please understand that now is absolutely the wrong time to raise taxes because many of us won’t be able to pay them.

Bill Gimbel
Madison