RFP Staff
♦ How many of you know that downtown Salisbury has the highest tax rate in the county? And how many of you know that downtown Salisbury properties are taxed the highest–bar none– in the entire state? That’s correct–the entire state. Thanks to some input from a city manager in a nearby county who took the time to answer some of our questions about why downtown Salisbury is failing and has so many vacancies. We also queried him about why Salisbury’s city management seeks to slam everyone with sky-high taxes, utility increases, and larger solid waste fees. No we don’t believe for a second the state legislature are trying to harm hard times Salisbury. Salisbury’s management did an eminent job of that with the city’s frivolous spending and dire need for a 70 million dollar municipal toy that consumers largely snubbed.
What ever happened to the notion of “Economies of Scale”, where bigger is better and less expensive? The Salisbury example’s seems to show that the bigger it’s gotten, the more economically wasteful and reckless it became.
How much longer can downtown Salisbury businesses sustain the ultra-high “Municipal Special District” Tax, which would be 61.36 cents per $100 evaluation were it not for the crushing Empire Hotel debt adding about 20 cents, to make it 81.24 cents per $100 evaluation?
The nearly 20 cents difference is borne on the backs of downtown businesses in an area where a few merchants appear more concerned about a half-cent for the West End Plaza, than they do over the extra 20 cents for the Empire Hotel. Talk about disproportionate. The Downtown Salisbury tax is breaking the backs of businesses. And who does it benefit?
http://www.rowancountync.gov/GOVERNMENT/Departments/TaxCollector/2013TaxRates.aspx
Scroll down the County tax chart and land on Salisbury’s tax rate. A whopping .8124 on top of the county rate of .6225 and the city rate of .6374 equals a whopping 2.0723 cents per $100 evaluation! No Salisbury isn’t midtown Manhattan. Salisbury’s beat downtown is losing pace with Lumberton, N.C. With a killer tax rate its no small wonder why so many downtown bric-a-brac and junktique stores throw in the towel soon after opening. Extreme taxes, desert island foot traffic, no visible parking, and surrounded by an island of poverty, its a credit to those shop locals staying power…of about 12 months.
On this Statewide report (found below), Salisbury has its ‘other district’ footnoted, rather than have it show up as a blight in the “Total of All Jurisdictions” taxing information, in order to prevent ready accessibility to the fact that Downtown Salisbury businesses suffer THE HIGHEST TAX RATE IN NC, when all total collections are tallied:
http://www.dornc.com/publications/2013-14_taxrates_prelim.pdf
“Salisbury MSD .8124″ is footnoted, rather than placed where it belongs under “other districts”.
NC General Statute 160A-20 (d) limits combined city taxes to $1.50 per $100 evaluation. Since that doesn’t include county taxes, we’ve added up the city tax and the MSD tax, and come up with $1.4788 if the city manager’s tax hike goes into effect. So he’s a mere 2.12 cents from the max-out taxation for downtown property owners, before he would have to go cutting the MSD tax, so as to avoid running afoul of the maximum taxation limitations.
Who benefits from the highest tax rate in the State, so that Downtown Salisbury Inc. can pay for the Empire Hotel? And why does Salisbury hide the facts in a footnote on the State tax rate reporting schedule?
Is this slight-of-hand ‘footnote reporting’ technique going to be blamed on the General Assembly? Zhone? The Rowan County Commissioners? Moody’s? The LGC?
Lots of overpriced bric-a-brac needs to be sold, just to pay the property tax. And Does Mr. Paris want another round of “hold harmless” revenues brought in? On top of all the existing tax revenues Salisbury avails themselves? Our city manager friend in another county wondered out loud: “Why isn’t the City of Salisbury running huge budget surpluses, with all that taxation—and all the water revenues they take in?”
Just a question, because if they’re granted hold harmless revenues, they’ll merely adjust their spending addictions to accommodate those funds until that old cow runs dry, too.
