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About Jackson herald. (Jefferson, Jackson County, Ga.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2023)
PAGE 4A THE JACKSON HERALD WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2023 Opinions “Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. Henry Ward Beecher Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com About senior tax exemptions The issue of whether or not to give senior citizens in Jackson County a larger property tax break could be com ing to a head. As reported elsewhere in this issue, an impending UGA study on the issue could either fuel the move ment to give seniors a larger tax break, or it could undermine those efforts. As they say, the devil will be in the details. For their part, many senior citizens are al ready convinced they deserve a larger break on property taxes. Over the last few years, doz ens have attended local government meetings to plead their case. So far, local officials have resisted that call. That might soon change. • •• This issue is really about three different things: Num bers, culture and politics. The numbers is what the UGA study is going to address. That study will, in part, look at what direct financial impact a larger senior citizen homestead exemption would have on local governments, especially school systems. On reason local officials have been reluctant to give a higher tax break is that doing so could take money away from schools at a time when a booming population is driv ing up school expenses. New families bring new students, which forces the construction of new school facilities, higher overhead and the hiring of additional staff. The fundamental issue is that virtually no homeowner pays enough in taxes to pay for their child’s school expens es. In Jackson County, the per student cost varies between $7,300 and $13,000. depending on the school system and individual school (Maysville Elementary is the highest while City of Jefferson schools are the lowest.) State funding pays about half of that with the remainder coming from local property taxes (and those numbers don’t include the cost of building new facilities, which are debt service payments from SPLOST or a separate bond tax.) The math around that really doesn’t work — every time a new family moves into the community with children, the local school system loses money. In reality, that “loss” is being made up for by other tax payers in the community — businesses, farms and fami lies that don’t have children in school, but who pay school taxes. To an extent, the numbers depend on where you live in Jackson County. The local tax digest for schools isn’t all the same. Jefferson’s tax digest, for example, has a larger percentage of industrial and commercial paying taxes than the City of Commerce or the Jackson County School Sys tem. That dynamic shapes millage rates differently depend ing on where you pay our taxes. Overall in all three school districts, the county’s tax di gest grew nearly 54% between 2018 and 2022. But about half of the digest is residential and that sector has grown even faster by climbing 70% during the same period due to the massive growth in new houses. The bottom line on the numbers is that higher homestead exemptions for senior citizens won’t lower the revenue needs for local schools, it will just shift that burden to other homeowners and to other taxpayers in the county. • •• Beyond the numbers, the issue of senior tax exemptions is also about a changing culture of entitlement. We seniors (yes, I’m one too) want our damn freebies. We want a dis count when we go to a movie, or buy a cup of coffee, or book a hotel room. It wasn’t always this way. The growth in senior citizens expecting to be given a break on buying things is relatively new. The idea has taken hold because seniors live on a “fixed income.” But that may or may not be totally true. While many seniors live off of Social Security payments, many also have other retirement funds to draw on. All of that is also indexed with SS going up and if the economy is good, investments often also go up. Really, everyone lives on a “fixed income.” Nobody gets to choose their income: if you work at Amazon, for exam ple, you get paid a “fixed” amount. The other cultural aspect of this issue is that many senior citizens moving to Jackson County are coming from Gwin nett County where a vast majority of senior citizens over age 65 don’t have to pay school taxes. When they move to Jackson County, they’re horrified to discover they have to pay those taxes. But comparing Jackson County to an urban county of one million people with a massive $58 billion tax digest is comparing apples to peanuts. Jackson County doesn’t have the depth of resources that Gwinnett has and really shouldn’t be held to the same financial expectations. There’s also a philosophical question related to this: What moral obligation do senior citizens have to help pay for kids’ education even if they don’t have children in school? A lot of senior citizens have argued at various govern ment meetings that 1. They have already paid a lot of school taxes over the years and 2. Since they don’t have kids in school they shouldn’t have to pay education taxes. But both of those arguments are pretty weak. Just be cause someone has paid taxes for many years doesn’t ne gate one’s social obligation to the community. Nor does the issue of having kids in school or not really matter. Public education isn’t a user-fee system where only those with children in school have to pay. As with insurance, fund ing for public education is the pooling of resources for the greater community good. If you are going to make the argument that those without children in school should be exempt from school taxation, then why not also exempt businesses? This newspaper has been paying taxes since 1875, shouldn’t the clock run out for us too? And we don’t have children in school, so why should a business have to pay school taxes? We senior citizens do have an interest in making sure society’s education is strong. If I’m in a hospital bed about to get an IV, I want the nurse or doctor doing that to be able to calculate the correct dose for me and not screw it up. Senior citizens do not live on an island. • •• Finally, politics is a key part of this issue. Senior citizens vote at a higher rate than younger citizens and have an out- sized impact on government decisions because of that. As more and more senior citizens move to Jackson Coun ty, the calls for senior tax exemptions have grown louder. That isn’t going to go away. Reportedly, some proposed legislation is in the works to raise the senior exemptions, a measure that wouldn’t move forward until the 2024 legislative session. Local voters would also probably have to approve the higher exemp tions in November 2024. • •• While I’m not convinced that higher homestead exemp tions for seniors would be good public policy — it would further distort an already distorted property tax system and only shift the burden to other taxpayers — I do think there needs to be a system for freezing property values at current levels for older residential homeowners. Older homeowners who have lived in their homes for many years and who do not plan to sell should not see their tax burden go up due to higher property values being driv en by growth and speculation. Rather than raising current exemptions for seniors, a move that would overnight shift the tax burden, a freeze would benefit seniors by allowing a more subtle shift to happen over time. It would benefit existing seniors in the county, but would have new move-in seniors pay their fair share based on current housing values. Property taxation is an imperfect system for funding lo cal governments. It’s rooted in an antiquated system that reflected the wealth of an agarin society, not a modern community. But it’s the system we’re stuck with. Finding ways to make it more equitable is fine, but in doing that we shouldn’t create a cleaved system of taxation where one group of people are exempt simply because they protest the loudest. Just because some senior citizens believe they “deserve” to pay less taxes doesn’t make it so. Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspa pers. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com. Time to dump Target Dear Editor: Unrepentant even after $9B (and grow ing) losses in stock value, Target has de fiantly stated publicly they will continue painting their corporate bullseye on chil dren. parents, American values even God until we accept their worldview. The move to hide their latest marketing agenda hasn’t worked.. .it has cost the com pany and its stock holders billions of dol lars... even so, they remain unrepentant in their anti-science attack on their customers, stating they will continue their relentless support of the fantasy driven mental health disorder behind the “Trans-movement.” You might have forgotten that Target was the first major American corporation to publicly kick Salvation Army Santas to the curb. What you may not know, in this current dust up, Target has used a self-proclaimed satanist to design their “Pride Month” swim suits, T-shirts and other summer attire...all of which support his/Target’s anti-America, anti-science worldview. Target’s alphabet pride fashions were created by Eric Carnellan an aggressive satanist who publicly supports violence against anyone opposing him. His brand “Abprallen” in German means, “I don’t care what you think”. Late breaking news...Target has an nounced a partnership with GLSEN an organization that avidly supports schools changing children’s names/pronouns with out informing parents. Target’s “snowflake” approach to their current dilemma is to play the victim and claim they have received threats which have made their employees feel “unsafe” to gain our sympathy. I hope it’s not true.. .if we resort to phys ical violence, we sink to their level. If we become like them the battle for America’s soul is lost. We are NOT like them. Franklin Graham was recently quot ed “Every demon in hell has been turned loose. Now is the time for action.” We must use our economic might to drive them to their knees. Stock holders, voice your disapproval, dump your stock now. We shouldn’t spend our money with anyone trying to undermine our values. Like Bud Light, Target has become an opponent of its middle American custom ers... determined to “teach” us bumpkins what we ought to know. Just maybe America is bigger than Target or Bud Light or the other “woke” corpora tion trying to fundamentally change us into their enlightened image. Sincerely, James Kinney Captain USN (ret) Biden to blame for high food prices Dear Editor: Yesterday, one of these novelty catalogs came in the mail. I saw a tee shirt that on the front said, “ I don’t usually brag about taking expensive trips, but I did just return from the grocery store.” Since I do the grocery shopping at our house, at first I found it humorous, then the longer I flipped through the rest of the catalog, the madder I got. At our house, we are basically creatures of habit. As dull as it may be, over a period of time, we will eat the same things. If we do take out, it also will be from no more than four or five places. It’s me, my wife, and the dog. The day before Joe Biden took office, my weekly gro cery bill averaged about $90. That included things like cleaning supplies, paper products, and of course dog food. Now, with essentially buying the same things, I can’t get out of the Kroger for less than $180 to save my life. Yes, we are both in our 80s and live on a fixed income. The last Social Security increase was nice, but that can’t happen every year. Why are we in this situation? Why did Joe Biden shut down the Keystone pipeline? The only reason I can find is that it was a Trump item. Did the imbecilic moron not know what the effect of that would be? Evidently not. I am not a Trump fan. I just don’t care for the man, but I like his policies and especially his “ America first “ policy. Evidently Biden doesn’t have enough real world experi ence to understand that the cost of fuel was going to go up, and that this country operates on petroleum. Every item on a store shelf has to be carried there by truck,train, or whatever, and they all run on fuel. They ain’t electric yet. If we don’t get somebody in charge pretty soon who can make a decision based on common sense and not politics, I’m afraid we’re in for the worst inflation in the history of this country. Sincerely, Tim Harris Time to plan Dear Editor: I have applauded Mike Buffington’s “Opinion” columns from a previous years personality format to an “Issue” for mat and he has kept that process. I am reminded that it is seldom in a life time that you can witness a community grow from basically “Agarian” to “Semi-Urban” and still growing. Our county had a population of 33,020 in 1995 upon my arrival from Buffalo NY. It’s now at 83,936. It takes a whole community from top to bottom to build a “house” on rock and not on sand. Where there is no vision The People “Perish.” We cannot wait until the rain and wind come and strengthen the House. The ball will continue to roll up North 1-85, our 343 square miles of land still has space left. The key is how we zone it and manage it because it is a blessed gift from God. Certain resources including water and commercial ame nities and ample medical facilities all. if nothing else, will and and increase and balance our tax base AND QUALITY OF LIFE, as we mature industrially. What is the prescription needed? A greater percentage of for the future citizenship must care and be engaged, irrespective of eth nicity, rank or bank account, we must insure that we leave this place better than we found it for the sake of our imme diate legacy and their legacy. Can we do it? Yes we can, but only if we all get “on board” because it is much room on the train. We must com municate with our leaders and support those who have vi sion and a peoples heart and expect more from those who do not “measure up” and who are out of touch. Be not dis mayed nor misinformed there is a sense of urgency now. In summary, deep in my belief and soul we are in a crit ical and transition time, it is time to spread a wide net and stretch each of us a big tent of relationship in our county. Some say that Time wasted can never be recovered, but I believe that recognition of time wasted can be gigantic les son and a motivator to make a creative immediate recovery and move forward. May God bless and keep our county community citizens and leaders. Sincerely. Jim Scott Commerce The Jackson Herald Founded 1875 Merged with The Commerce News 2017 The Official Legal Organ of Jackson County, Ga. Herman Buffington, Publisher 1965-2005 Mike Buffington Co-Publisher Scott Buffington Co-Publisher Alex Buffington News Editor Taylor Heam Sports Editor Postmaster: Send Address Changes To: MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. PO Box 908 Jefferson, Georgia 30549-0908 Web Site: www.JacksonHeraldTODAY.com Email: mike@mainstreetnews.com Voice: 706.367.5233 Periodical Postage paid at Jefferson, GA 30549 (SCED 271980) Yearly Subscriptions: $45 / $40 for seniors
