Laubach's Tax Proposal

Laubach's proposal to tax those not paying city income or property taxes is another example of his inability to think through his ideas.

Laubach seems to be more interested in drawing publicity to himself than offering up serious ideas.

1. People that rent housing pay property taxes, they just don't write a check to the county. It is included in the rent payments they make.

2. City income tax is not assessed on pensions, capital gains, etc. Josh would tax these sources of non-wage income.

Bottom line, senior citizens and people that rent housing would pay additional taxes.

Very stupid idea Josh. Try thinking things through or investigating your ideas before throwing them into the public forum. You might actually get something done if you do.

Gentlemen

    It is my belief that after years of kicking the can down the road the City of Middletown is now on the brink of the “Perfect Storm”.
    The majority of the sewer lines in Ward 1 and 2 are over 100 years old and are now crumbling beneath our streets.  
    The streets of these same wards are over 100 years old and have not been repaired in years.
    So do we start rebuilding the streets in these older areas only to return a few years later and dig them up for the new sewer-storm water lines?
    Not only do we need money for the streets but we also need money for the new storm water sewer lines.
    It is my humble opinion that we are now to the point we can not solve one of these problems without addressing the other.
   
    We can not continue to let City Hall gamble and waste millions of our tax dollars while our City crumbles. I’m against any fees being added to the water bill until the City gets frugal with our tax dollar and can show the tax payer a REAL PLAN to solve these problems.   
 

I appreciate JL's willingness to tackle this subject but it seems he should have gotten some advice and thought this through a little more.

Bill, of course I still tout a 0% tax, or 1% tax, no deviation. The city and council will NEVER make cuts at Donham, never until SR5 fails, which is actually going to be a net loss for the public unions, and put more pressure on city hall to make the tough cuts. $1Mm is going to take care of the streets, its less than a .3 of what was put in todays $$$ back in 1986.

I also said drop the tax back to 1.5%, or a net -.25% cut, but use that .25, and add another .35, for 5 years, and there is about $30 Mm for roads in a short period. Then, drop it back to 1.5% permanently. A sales tax increase of 2% might work, but that would not fly at Krogers, Meijer's, Kohl's, Target, Lowe's etc.

As city has decimated services such as roads, five choices:

1) Raise taxes to 2.0%, five years, tke 1% of that, just for roads and infrastructure.
2) Raise sale tax fee to 8.5%, maybe generating $5 Mm annually.
3) Barter with your neighbor to get your street done at a majority of 60%
4) Do nothing, put pot whole for patch down, and await the whole sewer system and streets to turn into pebbles.
5) Sell Weatherwax and airport, letting a set price for WW at a few $Mm, plus take over payments for buyer on debt. City will not do this, as debt retrired in few years will produce 'break-even' point' they will say. 

TANGO
This isn't the first time Laubach has tossed out ideas without thinking through the consequences. He seems driven more by ideology than solutions.
It is a lot easier to theorize than to come up with real solutions to real problems.

M29/Others,
I appreciate your concern and input. Before we get into the background over the flat/assessment fee for services, we need to qualify the discussion with the issues the city is facing. In my opinion, there are two main fronts that Middletown is going to have to deal with in the near future; 1) Flat and decreasing revenues 2) Increasing cost for providing basic services (This is another topic for another time). The flat fee/assessment system is a solution for the former. When observing the first situation, certain things are apparent to me. We are going to have less money in the future than we do now and the same solutions of arbitrary income and property tax levies are always advanced as a means to raise more money. As an example, look at the health, public safety levy and the Middletown 2020 levy put forth a few years back.   To me, these are not real solutions. It creates a skewed concept of cost and benefits in the city. The ideas put forth up to this point continue to ask the same people to pay more and in the end they are getting less from the city than in the past. Why should council not look at something different? Having said that, I am also not saying this is going to solve all of our problems but it would be the first of many steps that we need to take as a city to pay for and provide basic services to citizens without always depending on the state and federal government. M29, I am not sure I understand your opposition to trying to be a self-sustaining community?
Asking all residents of a certain age, to pay a minimum amount annually, is not unreasonable.   After all, if you enjoy the benefit of paved streets and police/fire protection, why should you not make some financial contribution? What I am proposing is that council work towards creating a system that collects an assessment/fee for basic services from ALL citizens. What is different about this concept compared to the street light assessment city wide proposed by staff currently? Or the assessment proposed by the folks on Main Street for new street lights in that district?   One of the things we need to recognize and be honest about is that there are many people living in Middletown that contribute nothing or very little into our local government.   And no, renters, as individuals are not paying property taxes. The landlord is. To that you might say, “well, the landlord is passing the cost to the renter”. To that I would say that landlords cannot raise rents indefinitely without renters going somewhere else to rent.   In other words, prices for rent are relatively fixed based on market prices.
Collection and specific policy needs to be worked out within the confines of state law and I understand that. Acclaro, to your points, my first thought when looking into this last year was a flat tax or a consumption tax. However, that does not appear to be possible under current state law. And no I never said anything about toll booths although I appreciate the wit and sarcasm. At this point, it is mandatory for everyone over 16 years of age to file an income tax return. What I would like to see is a system that requires each individual living in Middletown to be liable for a certain amount that would go specifically towards roads and infrastructure if they have a tax liability of zero. Additionally, I hear some of you saying, how would you collect that? To that question, I ask, how do we collect fees for water bills and income tax from individuals now? There are policy specifics that would have to be discussed in council. However, before staff can move forward, I need a majority of council.
The discussion that took place the other night was an introduction. My idea in bringing it forward was so that the community could see the discussion from start to finish.

Mrs. Moon,

No they have not. In the 1960's they consumed a little less than 60% of all general fund expenditures. Contrast that with the 72% for police and fire today and a measly 2.4% of general fund expenses for road repair.

Also, I have been trying to return your phone call but your line has been busy.

Right idea to dedicate money to streets. Wrong idea to spend time figuring out how to spread the pain.

Pardon my typing errors on the previous post.

I don't always agree with Mr. Laubach, but I do admire his willingness to sometimes tackle unpopular issues (even if he must stand alone to do so), as well as the fact that he at least occasionally visits this forum.  This street issue is one where, if I am elected, he will no longer have to stand alone, as I agree that something MUST be done.  I will work with him to find more viable alternatives to fund a larger annual pot for this essential public work.  $950,000 per year is NOT enough!!!

The councilman has the drive to talk about the issue.  Just pass a Ord. on a % for streets, we do not need another FEE or employee following the trail of money not paid to the city.  Don't mind the one poster who feels it's important letting you know how stupid you are, it's a gene issue in their DNA.  I admire the councilman but this "Don't tread on me" thing needs to go with your run for the Senate.  Keep it simple councilman.  I hope all that view this site will really think before they vote. 30 years of hope for a downtown and our streets crumble everyday.