Saturday, October 31, 2009

The hard numbers

The new levy rate numbers are in, based on the dollars. As I reported before, we reduced our budget $933,000 for 2010. In fairness we increased the HRA levy an additional $100,000 for a net overall decrease of $833,000.
The decrease reduces taxes 9.8%. Our tax rate in 2009 was 39.264%, our 2010 tax rate is 37.686%.
I have become a little discouraged at the lack of reporting of this good news for Ramsey.
Some cities claim to have kept taxes the same, even fewer have reduced. Have they really kept them the same?
Many cities rely on franchise and other fees to make their bloated budgets. Our city has no franchise fees.
It is true we do have some fees such as, street lights, storm water and others, but we did not increase any of those in an effort to hide increased taxes.
Bottom line, we now have less taxes in Ramsey.