||| FROM GREG AYERS |||


Look at your tax bill, not what OIFR is saying.  What you are paying this year versus next is what matters to you.  You don’t pay a levy you pay taxes.  For you it is not a few pennies, or even a few dollars, it is HUNDREDS of DOLLARS, maybe even THOUSANDS of dollars.  Think the difference between $500 and $900, a big number, not $1.05 or $1.06.

I have now seen a card from our fire department about their levy request where again they are being disingenuous.  I say this as I do not want to say they are being dishonest, as theoretically they are not.  Their numbers are intended to sound so small that you won’t event notice them, but they are not.  But let’s do the math, not the theory, because it is the math that generates your tax bill.

The math.  Find your tax bill.  Look in the top right corner, in the box labeled “Distribution Summary”.  One line towards the bottom is labeled “FIRE”.  That is your fire tax this year, what you PAID.  To calculate what your bill would have been with the new levy, take that number and multiply it by 1.83.  Not theory, rather math.  Paid $500 this year, would have paid $914, or $414 MORE.  Paid $2000, $1660 more.  HUNDREDS of dollars, THOUSANDS of dollars.  I will say that until you get your house value next year, which could go up or down, you will not know the exact tax, but your tax will certainly increase by more than a cent, or even a few dollars, you must know it will go up by at least HUNDREDS of dollars.  Think $100 NOT $0.01.  Think $1000 NOT $1.06

One final thought – so why will you be paying HUNDREDS or THOUSDANDS more?  Because the fire department budget has approximately doubled in recent years.  This is the shiny object they are trying to distract you from.  Let’s go back to having the commissioners involving the community in discussing what services the community wants and what is a fair price for those services.  Please join me in voting against the fire levy so that we can engage in this discussion. It is worth more than a few cents.


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