Cape Girardeau County sets increased property tax rate

Property owners in Cape Girardeau County will see a slight increase in the taxes they pay toward general revenue in 2013.

After a public hearing Monday, commissioners voted to set this year's levy at $0.0447 per $100 assessed valuation, up from $0.038 in 2012.

Leading up to the hearing, commissioners had said they hoped to see the levy lowered, but a lack of sales tax revenue growth in the past year made that difficult.

One person, Esther Bohnert of Jackson appeared at the hearing to question the commission about the county's finances and the tax increase.

Until 2012, some property tax had not been levied in the county since 1982, when climbing sales tax rates triggered a discount. In 1979, Cape Girardeau County voters passed a measure that approved a sales tax and reduced the property tax levy by 50 percent of the sales tax collected.

Presiding Commissioner Clint Tracy said Monday that the levy being set at $0.0447 this year could be "looked at as a 28-cent reduction," since the state-set ceiling for the rate is $0.336 per $100 assessed valuation.

The amount of the levy is determined through a calculation from the state auditor's office. The calculation uses a county's total assessed valuation and sales tax revenue to come up with the levy. So far this year, the county's sales tax revenue is up 1.77 percent from the same time last year, which county officials said is not enough to keep the property tax levy from rising.

The calculation and resulting levy essentially allows for counties to use property taxes for a safety net in the case sales tax revenue isn't covering expenses.

County officials have said the reason for levying the tax is not that the county is spending too much, but that a trend of rising expenses continues to hurt the general revenue budget.

Commissioners approved 2013 general revenue expenditures of $11,545,883 -- slightly higher than the amount the county budgeted in 2012. Actual spending in 2012 was just more than $10.7 million, which trends with the amounts -- about 10 percent -- typically spent under budget each year. Actual revenue in 2012 from sales taxes and fees was $10.6 million. The county also had a little more than $1 million on hand at the start of 2013.

Another factor, according to officials, is that starting several years ago, the county's unencumbered general revenue balance began to shrink, putting the county at risk for coming close to running out of money. In 2012, without the property tax levy, the unencumbered balance would have fallen to about $28,000, down from about $1 million in 2008. The county has counted less state reimbursements for housing prisoners in the county jail and state-required property assessments among its major losses in general fund revenue.

For a reason not completely clear to officials -- but they have said they believe constantly growing sales tax revenue could have played a part -- prior officeholders stopped using the calculation for the property tax some years ago. What current county officials said they found when they did the math for past years was the county could have actually collected about $2 million in property taxes in the years since 2001.

The commission also approved setting levy rates for mental health, seniors and developmental disabilities. Those rates, at $0.0772 for mental health and developmental disabilities and $0.0478 for senior services, did not change from 2012.

eragan@semissourian.com

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