GOVERNMENT: TAX BILLS COMING; WHERE DOES IT ALL GO?

JACKSON, Mo. -- Cape Girardeau County taxpayers would have to go back to school to find most of their property tax dollars.

Nearly 72 percent of the $30.8 million in real estate and personal property taxes owed this year are earmarked for seven school districts. Cape Girardeau and Jackson school districts will get the lion's share, but Delta, Oak Ridge, Nell Holcomb, Advance and Meadow Heights also receive tax money collected by the county.

Cities and fire districts get some of the tax money, as do sheltered workshops for the handicapped, senior citizens centers, the Riverside Regional Library and the Cape Girardeau Special Business District.

In all, County Collector Diane Diebold's office collects taxes earmarked for 31 different agencies and local governments, including seven school districts, eight cities and seven fire districts. And, depending on where taxpayers live, various ones will be listed on the 60,000 individual tax bills being mailed out Monday and due by the end of the year.

Cape Girardeau and Jackson are among the cities whose property taxes are collected by the county. Old Appleton and Oak Ridge are the only two incorporated cities in the county that collect their own property taxes, Diebold said.

In Cape Girardeau County, real estate taxes total $22.8 million, and personal property amounts to about $8 million.

But county government sees very little of that. The taxes owed county government this year total only $564,797, all from the 22-cent road and bridge levy.

The Cape Special Road District, which maintains roads in the rural areas outside Cape Girardeau, gets more tax money than the county highway department. Tax bills for the district this year total $1.1 million.

Diebold said that is because the district has a higher levy, and property within its boundaries is more heavily developed, resulting in higher assessed valuations.

No general revenue levy

The county government has no general revenue fund levy. By law, half of the county's half-cent sales tax revenue is used in lieu of property taxes.

Cape County's sales tax revenue, an estimated $5 million a year, is enough to eliminate the general revenue fund levy entirely each year. The county government hasn't had a general revenue fund levy since 1982. The county last had a general revenue levy in 1981 -- 11 cents.

Presiding Commissioner Gerald Jones said Cape Girardeau County is one of 15 counties in the state without one.

Real estate and personal property taxes are levied based on $100 assessed valuation of what they owned as of Jan. 1 each year.

Personal property covers everything from cars to boats, motor homes to livestock. The assessed value of such belongings is updated annually based on a state formula. Real estate is reassessed every two years.

Real estate and personal property are taxed at the same rate, but the total varies depending on where a person lives. The city, school and fire district levies vary from district to district.

According to tax records, the levies vary from 4.93 cents per $100 assessed valuation in Whitewater, Mo., to a low of 3.76 cents in the Millersville, Mo., area.

Healthy reserves

County Auditor H. Weldon Macke said the county's revenue comes largely from sales tax and fees.

The county has an annual operating budget of about $12 million a year, including $2 million for road and bridge operations.

The county recently built an archives center, and work is continuing on an addition to the county jail. Those construction projects forced the county to tap into its reserves. As a result, the county's reserves have dropped from around $9.3 million to $7 million in the last two years.

But Macke said the county is still in good shape financially with $5 million in an emergency reserve fund, where the money is invested in certificates of deposit, and $2 million in a capital improvement account.

Macke said he hopes the county can build up its reserves in the next several years. But he said the county's building projects, including the upcoming construction of a new juvenile center, are important, too.

"I am not going to sacrifice things that are needed," he said.

FOLLOWING THE PROPERTY TAXES

Cape Girardeau County property tax bills for 2000 and where the money goes:

*Taxes coming in

Real estate: $22.8 million

Personal property: $7.9 million

Total: $30.8 million

*Money going out

Road and bridge districts: $1.6 million

Riverside Regional Library: $227,725

School districts: $22.2 million (includes $12.8 million to Cape Girardeau, $7.5 million to Jackson)

Cities: $3.4 million (includes $2.2 million to Cape Girardeau, $1 million to Jackson)

Fire districts: $507,269

Cape Girardeau Special Business District: $16,569

*Misc. taxes & uses

State tax: $200,657

Sheltered workshop tax: $535,013

Mental health tax: $535,013

County health tax: $668,773

Senior citizens tax: $334,519

Surtax on businesses: $571,041

Source: Cape Girardeau County collector's office