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Aug.
1, 2013
Vote
YES and Save
Julie
Lavy Strait
Editor:
Voting
Yes for the school bond levy on August 6 is your best opportunity to
minimize
your personal tax cost of building a new school and renovating the High
School. We
all know that our schools
are in need of replacement, and if we don’t take voluntary action now
we may
soon be forced into action by an unfortunate catastrophe or by the
State
declaring our buildings unsafe. If
a tax
is imposed at that point in time, it could be up to 56% higher than if
we
choose to bite the bullet now.
Yes,
your vote for a new school on August 6 will increase the tax burden by
$174.26
per year for the owner of a $100,000 property.
But the $174.26 is based on:
1)
Current interest rates that will almost certainly increase in the
future,
2)
Construction costs which are at a relatively low level,
3)
The
state offering to pay 43% of the new building cost for a savings of $74.93 per year
on a $100,000 property, and
4)
Taking
advantage of our final opportunity to keep the 12.5% Homestead Rollback
savings
on our current property tax bills.
You
can choose to vote Yes now, and build a new school at the lowest cost
by taking
advantage of the above 4 savings opportunities that are built into this
bond
issue, or wait and make everyone pay a much higher tax bill in the
future. I don’t
know about you, but I do not want to
pay any more taxes than I have to, so please, let’s take advantage of
this
opportunity!
This
is not the time to hold onto past hurts and disappointments, this is
truly a
‘Pay Now or Pay Later’ situation.
Maintenance costs are continuing to escalate
due to the age of the
current buildings. At
some point in the
not-too-distant future we are going to be forced into building new
schools, and
you can count on the tax cost at that point in time being significantly
higher
than it is now. Please
do yourself and
our community a favor and vote YES for the August 6 bond issue and
maintenance
levy. In
the long run, it will save you
money.
Julie
Lavy Strait
Greenville
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