Letter to the editor: Fiscal sense

To the editor:

On Dec. 8, one of the front-page headlines read “Cities, Counties: property tax lid causing harm.” Really? If you believe this, I have some ocean-front property in southwest Douglas County for sale.

This past week I, like so many others, sat down and wrote my checks for property tax to the Douglas County treasurer. The amount I paid represented one of the largest tax increases in recent history, equaling more than the rate of the inflation cap in the new tax lid.

The tax lid isn’t causing any harm because our taxing agency found a loophole: Raise the mill levy! If they could only learn to manage our money.

While we’re on the topic of managing money, in 1998 our “new jail” at the time opened. This jail was built using funds from a tax approved by the taxpayers. At the time the new jail was built, we were all told in X number of years the jail would need to be expanded. Here we are all these years later, and our leaders failed to heed their own expectations of a needed jail expansion by setting aside any funds for this expansion. So again, we the taxpayers are being asked to approve new funding. Please learn to manage our money!