====== Peeled & Sliced Chapel Hill Taxes ====== ^{{ps:orange_peeler_1.jpg?120x120}}^| ===== May 2010 ===== ===== Chapel Hill Has Low Taxes??? No Sex, Lotta Lies, & No Videotape ===== ==== Press The Image To Hear Progressive Truth Revealed ==== [[http://squeezethepulp.com/w/_media/ho:truth.mp3|{{ho:lotta_lies.jpg?350x350}}]] \\ \\ You would think that Progressives would want you to know exactly how your town compares to others in spending your taxes. You would think that they would not engage in political prestidigitation, conflating tax rates with tax burdens. You would think that they would be proud of spending more money on town employees per capita and receiving less sales tax moneys per capita than all those nasty non-Progressive towns. You would be wrong. With the coming of May comes the presentation of municipal budgets. Here in Orange County there’s also a noticeable uptick in the consumption of analgesics as pollen headaches turn into political headaches. The town of Chapel Hill has lead off the festivities unveiling its [[http://www.townofchapelhill.org/budget|FY 2010-2011 budget]]. In a word, the recommended budget is “profligate” considering the continuing Great Recession. You guessed it. They just couldn’t freeze their spending. The general fund budget is $52.6 million. Tax rate increases were avoided by funding the 5.6 percent increase by raiding the rainy day accumulated reserve funds of about $2,270,000. An additional $3,000,000 came from delaying equipment replacement, postponing hirings, and reducing transit service. Although there will be no "salary increases", there will be “adjustments”. The town will shower $453,204 for one-time salary adjustments. The good news for those pesky fiscal conservatives is that, finally, town employees will get a taste of what’s been happening in the private sector to healthcare costs. Employees will pay more 13.9 percent more for employee-family coverage plans. That’s a dreaded monthly increase of between $29 and $59. In addition, co-pays will be increased. In an effort to put a good face on a bad financial situation, Town Manager [[ss:rst|Roger Stancil]] crowed about Chapel Hill having a tax rate in the lowest third of comparable cities in North Carolina. He talked about having tax rates "//lower than High Point, Burlington, Carrboro, Rocky Mount, Durham, Gastonia, Greenville and Wilson//". Pulpsters know that comparing tax rates is meaningless. It’s the tax burden, how much money you pay per person, that counts. Towns with higher assessed values (like Chapel Hill) can collect far more money with a “lower rate” than can an equivalent town with a lower average assessed value. The following table belies Mr. Stancil’s smoke and mirrors. ^ FY 2009-2010 ^ Chapel Hill ^ Durham ^ Gastonia ^ Greensboro ^ Average* ^ ^ Property taxes per capita |$608| $507 | $364 | $546 | $484 | ^ Salaries & Wages spent per capita |$597 | $486 | $679 | $516 | $531| • - “Group Average” refers to all North Carolina towns having a population greater than 50,000 and no municipal electrical utilities Notice how Chapel Hill may have a lower tax rate than Durham, but each Chapel Hill resident pays 20% more in property taxes. Don’t even look at Gastonia. Although it spends 14% more per Gastonia resident in town employee wages and salaries, it touches each resident 67% less for property taxes than Chapel Hill shakes down its residents. Oh, but Chapel Hill does have a lower tax rate than Gastonia! \\ \\ === February 2009 === ===== Mayor Foy Calls For Faith-Based Transportation Tax ===== ==== Press The Image To Pray For The Tax ==== [[http://squeezethepulp.com/w/_media/{{:ho:doxology.mp3|{{:ho:faith_based_governance.jpg?350x350}}]] \\ \\ Amidst an economic slide into a depression, Mayor Kevin Foy has used his recent “State of the Town” address to call among the faithful for supporting yet another local tax. This time it’s a local transportation tax. Calling for “//bold steps//”, Mr. Foy said, //"The reason I bring it up is because there is doubt in the General Assembly as to whether this region is willing to impose a tax on itself.//" Mr. Foy’s proposed tax wouldn't pay for the transit system. In a call for faith from Orange Progressives, Mr. Foy believes that you should tax yourself in support of an undefined rail transit system in order to “prove commitment”. Again, in his words, "//So it's a good deal.//" (See [[http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/orange/10-1093393.cfm| Chapel Hill Herald Rail Tax Story]].) Überplanning “growth is good” bureaucrats, forced residential densification, and profits for politically connected [[ph:start#palocracu| pals]] are the holy trinity behind faith-based, municipally imposed, non-bus-based public transportation systems sweeping the country. Portland has one. Charlotte has one. Why not the Raleigh metro area, including Chapelboro? Mr. Foy wants a light rail system no matter what. It’s part of the [[ph:start#smart_growth|“smart growth”]] catechism. He's not concerned with making your life better. He wants to make it economically feasible for intense residential development to occur at “transportation nodes” (//aka// neighborhoods) that are linked by light rail. He needs it to [[ho:december_2008#shot_across_the_bow_as_unc_trustee_perry_announces_unc_call_for_populating_downtown|repopulate]] the historic business district, supproting the UNC agenda. Mr. Foy shows his faith by not needing any detailed plan in order to call for a tithe (//aka// local tax) on the faithful. Just believe in light rail and smart growth will happen. Although catastrophic climate change is the religious banner under which überplanners crusade, will a light rail system really be better for you than a bus-based system? Cracks are beginning to show in the light rail crusade. Even Vancouver “sustainability” high priest Mr. Patrick Condon is [[http://www.sxd.sala.ubc.ca/8_research/sxd_FRB07_cost.pdf| calling]] for using electric streetcars over light rail systems to promote urban redevelopment. (Pulpsters should note in reading the Condon paper that the city of Portland, Oregon gave away $665,000,000 in taxpayer subsidies to developers along its first new streetcar line, in addition to the $15,000,000 per track mile and $2,000,000 per vehicle transit capital costs. They also should note that major false assumptions are made regarding vehicular use in the USA. Cars average 1.6 people per trip (not 1.0) and public transit averages 16% occupancy (not 50%).) According to one überplanning critic ([[http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-615.pdf| Mr. Randall O’Toole]] of the Cato Institute) most rail transit systems (emphasis on the word "system") use more energy per passenger mile, and many generate more greenhouse gases, than the average passenger automobile. By “system”, Mr. O’Toole includes the total energy consumption, including that of the bus feeder lines that support a light rail system. Mr. O’Toole proposes the following heretical alternatives to a light rail transit system. 1) Power buses with hybrid-electric motors, biofuels, and nonfossil fuel sourced electricity. 2) Concentrate bus service on heavily used routes and use smaller buses during offpeak periods and in areas with low demand. 3) Build new roads, using variable toll systems, and coordinating traffic signals to relieve highway congestion that wastes nearly 3 billion gallons of fuel each year. 4) Encourage people to purchase more fuel-efficient cars. Getting 1% of commuters to switch to hybrid-electric cars will cost less and do more to save energy than getting 1% to switch to public transit. No word on whether or not Mr. O'Toole will be invited to address the Chapel Hill Town Council any time soon. No word on whether or not the Chapelboro light rail system will stop at the unemployment office. \\ \\ === October 2008 === \\ \\ ===== Tax Exempt Free Ride at Carol Woods – How Low Income Homeowner Retirees Pay the Tax Load for Higher Income Tax Exempt Retirement Community Retirees ===== ==== Press the Image to Hear the Discriminating Sales Pitch ==== [[http://squeezethepulp.com/w/_media/ho:edgar_winters_free_ride_clip.mp3|{{:ho:carol_woods_discriminate.jpg?350x450}}]] \\ \\ __Taxes?? Why Should the Well-Off Pay Local Taxes?__\\ [[http://carolwoods.org|Carol Woods]] is a lovely, bucolic retirement home community that organized in 1972 and opened for business in 1979. During its founding years, it specialized in attracting retiring UNC professors and their spouses. Located in the northern wooded end of the town of Chapel Hill, Carol Woods is a place to which you would want to retire. But Carol Woods has a dark secret. Its well-off 400 or so residents pay no property taxes, unlike lower socio-economic retirees in their less desirable homes in Chapel Hill. Carol Woods has an interesting business model as yet another of the many [[ph:start#non_profit|tax exempt]] southern Orange businesses. To be admitted to live at Carol Woods, one must be screened for your financial qualifications, //i.e.//, how much you have in net worth. Carol Woods is not for median net worth retirees. You must transfer a sizeable chunk of money to Carol Woods before you can enter the hallowed halls of Carol Woods. Admission fees for a two bedroom cottage range from at least $184,000 to over $295,000. Even assuming you can pay the entrance fee, there’s the small matter of qualifying for the operational fees. Again, Carol Woods is not affordable to your ordinary retiring homeowner in North Carolina. Monthly fees after admission range from about $2000 to over $3000 a month. Carol Woods may not see you through your entire retired life. If you need more than assisted home care, then you must leave Carol Woods for a nursing home. Should you want to leave Carol Woods, it’s not like selling an equity share in your house or a housing project. The refunding of your entrance money declines by 2% per month. After about 4 years, if you leave Carol Woods, then you get no money back. Curiously, Carol Woods tells prospective residents that it’s a good thing that they aren’t buying equity in a home at Carol Woods, because then they aren’t responsible for property taxes. They don’t say that no one is responsible for property taxes because they don’t exist for Carol Woods. __It’s Good to Have Friends in High Places__\\ Carol Woods didn’t start out life not paying municipal property taxes. From its inception in 1979 it paid the county and town taxes just like a low income retiree in a single family house down the street. But Carol Woods directors felt that as a non-profit with noble purposes, it should not pay for its use of municipal services. So almost as soon as its doors opened, its directors sued to get an exemption from property taxes. Carol Woods lost. The NC Court of Appeals ruled that Carol Woods didn’t qualify as being exempt under GS 105-278.6 as a charitable home for the aged or infirm. Carol Woods hadn’t presented any evidence either that a resident was unable to pay the entrance fee or the monthly fees charged after admission or that such a resident was being helped with payment as a charitable contribution. (See 60 NC App 294.) Carol Woods didn’t give up. It got the law changed. By lobbying in the General Assembly, the governing law was changed so that Carol Woods could qualify for a property tax exemption. (See S.L. 2001-17.) The General Assembly passed laws (NCGS §105-278.6A) making it easier for retirement homes to obtain tax-exempt status for their property. It failed to pass laws to increase the property tax exclusion for low-income elderly or disabled homeowners in their own homes. Retirees who couldn’t qualify for Carol Woods were left out in the woods. At about that time, Carol Woods was paying the town of Chapel Hill about $500,000 a year in property taxes, based on an assessed valuation of about $36,000,000 for the 120 acre paradise. That’s about $90,000 per resident. Rather than continue to pay taxes, Carol Woods embarked on a building program. It built two 9,000 square foot garden homes, twelve 1,855 square foot cottages, a $1,000,000 dining room renovation, and a 1,200 square foot crafts shop. __The Shroud of Profit About a Tax Exempt Business__\\ In 2006 Carol Woods (more accurately known as the Chapel Hill Retirement Center, Inc.) reported gross receipts of $20,178,839 and total assets of $78,977,794, making it one of the wealthiest organizations in Chapel Hill, outside UNC. It received annual program service revenues of $16,922,234, or about $42,000 per resident. It made an annual gain on securities sales of $2,532,928. Yet Carol Woods pays nothing in state income taxes, as well as being exempt from local property taxes. How does Carol Woods spend its money? According to its tax form, it spends $9,710,516 on employee compensation, or about $24,726 per resident. The officers make about $500,000 per year without benefits. The rest is mostly for providing a comfortable lifestyle for the Golden 400 who reside there. As for assets, Carol Woods manages over $38,000,000 in securities, or about $95,000 per resident. It lists its untaxed land and buildings as being worth $56,509,742, or about $141,000 per resident. How much would Carol Woods owe in property taxes if it was like the low income retiree paying taxes. At a town and county rate of .01809 per dollar of assessed value, the taxes today would be $1,022,261 annually. Even at a one half “homesteader’s rate”, the taxes would be about $500,000. How much in charitable care is given annually out of the over $21,000,000 in expenditures? About $117,000. Back in 2001, Carol Woods President Patricia Spriggs agreed to make a “contribution” to the town for the loss of the property taxes, about $125,000. In Ms. Spriggs’ words “//I don’t think we want to get into a situation where we’re committed to a certain amount forever.//” (Chapel Hill News Dec. 30, 2001). By 2005 Carol Woods was no longer making any "//contributions.//" But financial contributions have followed the Carol Woods leadership. Ms. Spriggs makes over $228,000 annually, and that doesn't include all benefits. \\ \\ === January 2008 === ===== Local Government Budget Reports Forget to Mention, Public Job Pay Outstripping Private Pay ===== |{{ho:orangecountyofficebuildingrendering.jpg?375x300}}|\\ \\ According to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average compensation of state and local government workers is far ahead of that for private workers. The gap widens every year, rising by an average $1.02 an hour last year, $2.45 an hour over the past three years. State and local government workers now earn an average of $39.50 per hour in total compensation, over 50% more than private workers ($26.09 an hour). Private businesses are trimming pension benefits and asked employees to pay a greater share of medical costs. When adjusted for inflation over the past seven years, 20,000,000 (excluding 2,700,000 federal) public employees received a 16% increase in compensation. State and local governments have more than $1 trillion in unfunded liabilities for pensions and retirement medical benefits for public employees. No word from any managers of any of the Orange local governments as to why such comparisons aren't in their budget reports to elected officials. FMI [[http://www.bls.gov/|Bureau of Labor Statistics]]