By: Diane Benjamin
I hope the people around Lexington weren’t told their taxes would go down if a wind farm is built. They won’t, the letter below proves plans are already being made to spend the additional $1.3 million in new taxes. I wonder if the writers know that wind farm money decreases over time. Big plans will come back and bite taxpayers in the future.
It’s actually worse than just that. Assessed values are rising but they are keeping the rate the same. They will automatically be collecting more from you because your house is worth more while they act innocent.
Normal is playing that game too Monday night, the rate may be the same as last year but rising assessed values mean the Town of Normal gets more blood from you turnips.
PDF page 153 https://normal.org/ArchiveCenter/ViewFile/Item/4129
The Lexington School District could have asked for about the same amount of property taxes as last year, add a couple percent for inflation and salary increases. That would have meant lower property taxes for everyone. Instead the signees below want the extra bucks to spend, which proves one thing:
Government NEVER has enough money to spend
and taxpayer refunds aren’t allowed.
There is always one more great thing government must spend money on. Your representatives aren’t working for you, they are reaching for their own utopia. While your cost of living is spiraling out of control the guys below don’t see any reason to cut you some slack. It’s THEIR money, fork it over.
Lexington taxpayers need to make sure grandiose plans you will pay for in the future don’t materialize. For Normal it is too late, building the underpass will cost you even more in the future since the construction cost estimates aren’t close to current.
Heating this winter is going to cost more, Lexington might need the $1.3 million to pay the bills.
When Ridgeview got the windmills, I understand that the additional property tax revenue caused the state to drop an equal amount of state aid, resulting in no additional revenue for the district.
It became a thing that other districts would abate the property taxes in exchange for cash payments that would not trigger the drop in state aid.
I know there is now “evidence based” funding that uses a different formula, but have they looked into this? If it’s like it used to be, they could lose money from one source because they are getting extra money from another.