12/03/2006

Board approves 22 percent property tax rate increase

By
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY — Garfield Township quietly and without warning to taxpayers boosted its general property tax rate 22 percent to raise an additional $500,000 to help pay for its burgeoning park system and retiree health benefits.

Two days before Thanksgiving the township board approved raising its general property tax levy for 2007 by .5-mills to 2.358 mills, to cover a projected general fund budget of $3.6 million.

Township Supervisor Lee Wilson said officials advertised the meeting to set the millage rate to match the budget, but the notice did not indicate the board would discuss or vote on a major tax increase.

Wilson said officials followed the same process as any other year, with the board working through budget requests during public work sessions in September and October. He said the board decided in October it would need to raise the millage, but didn't take action to inform residents a tax hike was imminent. Officials weren't trying to hide it from the public, he said.

McCall

"It's there every year that there is a possibility we'll raise the millage,” Wilson said. "We couldn't advertise a proposed millage because we wouldn't know the millage rate until after we adopted the budget and the budget could be changed during the hearing.”

No one from the public attended the meeting.

"I don't know what more we could have done outside of publishing our own newsletter,” Wilson said.

The increase will cost the owner of a $200,000 home with a taxable value of $100,000 an extra $50 a year.

The total township millage, including fire, park, and debt levies, is 5.108 mills.

The 2007 budget is expected to grow just 3.6 percent, but over the last three years the board has used its hefty fund balance to cover an estimated $1 million in budget shortfalls. The township had maintained a $4 million-plus fund balance that's now around $3 million, but Wilson said the board decided it was time to make expenditures more closely match revenues.

The township's biggest expenditure of late has been its new park system, including more than $400,000 it spent on improvements and maintenance the past two years for East Silver Lake Park.

Neighbors said the park is a great asset for the township, and many aren't bothered by the higher tax if it pays for recreation.

"If they want to keep going on the parks that's fine, but if they want to keep throwing money at that dead horse of a septage treatment plant they can go to h---,” said Mark Larson. "Lots of people are using the parks.”

Township voters agreed to tax themselves to obtain East Silver Lake Park, but that levy doesn't produce enough revenue to maintain or improve the park system, Wilson said.

The park millage brings in about $340,000 a year, but the township spent more than $510,000 in both 2005 and 2006 on its five parks. The township budgeted $415,000 for 2007, with East Silver Lake eating up $200,000 for debt payments and $100,000 for improvements and maintenance.

"Garfield Township, since the '70s, has never had a park that we maintained or anything,” Wilson said. "This has been an experiment that went over real big with the public.”

The park includes a paved trail system, extensive playground equipment, a pavilion, tennis courts and basketball courts.

"We started with the trail, and the next thing I know we have 30 moms with strollers asking me when are we going to put a tot lot in,” Wilson said. "Then it's tennis courts and it just goes on and on and on. The public is pushing for the improvements.”