From the Washington County Insider.
In the Spring Town Crier, it was mentioned that the Town Board may be asking residents to approve an increase in the levy in the near future. Because of the increased road repair needs, as well as the comments and questions received regarding road repair and maintenance, the Town Board has resolved to place a referendum question on the November 6 ballot.
The question will state: “Under state law, the increase in the levy of the Town of Trenton for the tax to be imposed for the next fiscal year, 2018, is limited to 1%, which results in a levy of $942,366. Shall the Town of Trenton be allowed to exceed this limit and increase the levy for the next fiscal year, 2019, and going forward permanently, for the purpose of improving and maintaining Town of Trenton roadways, by a total of $500,000, equating to 53.5885%, which results in a levy of $1,433,036?“
Voting “yes” means you approve the Town increasing the annual levy by $500,000 to be used for Town road repair and maintenance. Voting “no” means you do not approve the Town increasing the annual levy by $500,000 and therefore the Town will be limited to the state-imposed levy limit increase.
The levy increase referendum must be presented at a General (November) election, or at a Special Election. The Town Board decided it would be better to present it this year, rather than wait until the 2020 General Election, or spending money on a Special Election in 2019.
So we are to conclude that Trenton cannot find $500K to spend on repairing Trenton’s roads any other place than MO’MONEY!???
Key word most people won’t notice – “permanently”.
That is a permanent 54% tax increase the big spenders want. And it still won’t be enough for them.
I doubt that in a $1M budget, limited to 1% tax increases per year, there would be $500,000 to find. For perspective, in that township the school tax is triple what the town tax is.My township (Barton) will be facing the same issues. Over the past 20+ years quite a few subdivisions were built. That increases the traffic load on the existing roads, as well as increases the annual snowplowing/salting needs (which in our case is contracted out). In the meantime, a lot of those roads (in the subdivisions) are at the outer end of their lifecycle. A road I travel everyday has deteriorated edges – one spot you have to ride the center line to avoid dropping off the side (next to be ravine with no guardrails). Another spot is considered a “cash cow” for a local towing company in winter – the edge of the road skews inward, there is no shoulder, and cars (and once a school bus) get sucked down into the ditch by it.
I am not crazy about the levy being permanent – would rather see it as limited to a certain number of years, so that citizens can choose to renew it if they are seeing the results and making sure that some projects don’t get funded sooner than necessary because the money is there.