Bandy to Cut Hours and Raise Rates

Last year Mayor Bandy spent $22,250 of our tax money on a flawed
compensation study. Using the defective study as decoy, he increased the
salaries of many city employees in the middle of a recession and
declining tax revenues.

He is now proposing a reduction in salary costs. Good idea. But instead
of reducing the wage rates to 2008 levels, he plans on reducing hours by
five percent. This is like telling you your car will get better mileage
if you drive it less. The effective cost of city government will
actually increase, since city employee medical and dental insurance
benefits will not be reduced. We get less service at a higher price.

Here's an idea: In his recent budget proposal, the Mayor has promised to
get the City out of debt and have $700,000 in reserves by October 1,
2010. To guarantee he is serious, he should cut his salary back to the
$42,000 it was when he was elected until his promises are fulfilled.
This should quickly incentivize the Mayor to stop overspending.

The Mayor said he won't raise property taxes. Really? According to his
assistant, his budget proposes a 4.1 percent increase in property taxes.
How is this possible when homes in some Eagle neighborhoods have fallen
33 percent in value and vacant lots have fallen up to 75 percent? In
2008 Mayor Bandy raised the levy rate 5.7 percent from the previous year
when no one was watching.

The Mayor is playing a game with rates and revenues. Property taxes are
based on assessed value multiplied times the levy rate. So if your house
falls in value, why are your property taxes still the same? Either the
assessor has not reduced your assessed value, or the city has raised the
levy rate, or a combination of both.

In order to keep the total amount of property taxes from falling, the
Mayor may resort to increasing the levy rate again. This way, he can
claim that he hasn't raised your property taxes. To get the same
property tax revenue from a property that has lost 33 percent in value,
the levy rate must be increased by 50 percent. We need the Mayor to be
honest on property taxes and promise not raise the levy rate.

This would be like Butch Otter facing a decline in sales tax revenue due
to falling retail sales deciding to raise the sales tax rate from 6
percent to 9 percent and then claiming that he didn't raise taxes
because the total revenue from sales taxes hasn't increased.

We still have a long way to get Eagle back on sound financial footing.
An open and clear discussion from the Mayor on the difference between
rates and revenues would be helpful.

For now the Mayor needs to promise not to raise the property tax levy
rate.