If Portlanders keep approving property tax hikes the only people who will be able to afford living in Portland will be public employees sanctioned to carry weapons.*
$ .05/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Oregon Historical Society - Already passed
$ .14/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Portland Fire Bureau - Already passed
$ 2.65/$1,000 of Assessed Value, Portland Public Schools - On May 2011 ballot
---------------------------------------
$ 2.84/$1,000 of Assessed Value
Average assessed value of Portland home is $170,600.
Current property tax of average Portland home is $170,600 x .0218 = $3,719
Taxes recently passed but not yet included in property tax bill of average Portland home are $170.6 x .19 = $32.41
Potential INCREASE in property tax of average Portland home if PPS tax passes is $170.6 x 2.65 = $452.09
Total passed and potential INCREASE in property tax of average Portland home is $32.41 + $452.09 = $484.50
Potential November 2011 property tax of average Portland home is $3,719+32.41+452.09= $4,203.50
Potential INCREASES for renters, $30 to $50 per MONTH.
Potential INCREASES to Portland General Electric and NW Natural property taxes that will be passed on to ratepayers is $100,000.
And don't forget. Proposals for new taxes for Libraries, Arts, Parks, Community Colleges etc. are just around the corner.
Fun Fact
Publicly elected budget makers/cutters in Portland, Wisconsin and Washington D. C. have specifically exempted their armed employees from the budget axe. Unarmed public employees at the federal, state and local levels however, will be forced to face national, state and local economic realities. As funny man Mel Brooks said in his movies, "it's good to be the king."
The PPS Tax Hike Is NOT About Kids. It Is About ADULT MISMANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC FUNDS
At the protest against the PPS tax in front of city hall on February 16th, a man introduced himself to me as a public school math teacher. He agreed that PPS had cheated on the math in the budget and that he would not teach his students to do that but supported the tax increase anyway because he hadn't gotten a raise in two years and he was owed an increase.
Some impressionable children will be manipulated by their parents and other pro school tax related authority figures to take an active part in the campaign to significantly increase property taxes on their friends, neighbors and all citizens of Portland.
These children will NOT be taught in math class, current events class or any other class that their parents, teachers, school staff and school board have been coconspirators for decades in cheating on the annual PPS public budgets by omitting the true costs of maintenance, capital improvements and unfunded liabilities.
These children will NOT be taught the connection between children cheating on a test or book report and adults cheating on a public budget document.
These children will NOT be taught that when adults lie about how they are spending other people's money it is often a criminal offense that can lead to jail.
These children will NOT be taught that the adults responsible for protecting the clients of the Housing Authority of Portland and the Portland Housing Bureau have been suspiciously negligent in abdicating their responsibility to defend low-income and poor persons who will be hit hardest.
These children will NOT be taught that some people may be taxed out of their homes and apartments by the PPS tax increase.
These children will NOT be taught in economics class that raising taxes in a recession, in a state with 10.6% unemployment and billions of dollars of revenue shortfall is bad economics and a very bad idea.
These children will NOT be taught that many if not most of the people and corporations that contributed to the PPS tax hike campaign are in it for the money.
If you are angry and/or scared about the enormous property tax hike proposed by the Portland Public Schools' Board necessitated by their mismanagement of public funds then take action.
Join your fellow outraged taxpayers on Wednesday April 27, 2011 from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM in a demonstration at Portland City Hall. Bring a sign. Bring your lunch. Bring a friend. Bring your sense of humor. Satisfy your need to do something to stop those who have mismanaged our public funds and now want us to pay for it - again.
Sign up to help organize or just commit to being there. Contact Richard Ellmyer: stopppstax@goodgrowthnw.org
Go here for updates: http://www.goodgrowthnw.org
Vote NO On PPS TAXES
Richard Ellmyer
Thirty-Five years of political activism. Leader of two successful efforts in 1999-2000 to stop proposed neighborhood destroying outdoor amphitheaters at PIR and the Expo Center.
Former progressive, socially liberal, fiscally conservative candidate for the North Portland House seat in the May 2010 primary. Defeated by establishment Democrat Tina Kotek, who supports the status quo which allows Public Utilities to become POLITICAL Utilities by advocating for tax increases and the related rate hikes on their customers. Kotek also supports the huge PPS property tax increases as she has every other tax bill in Salem.
*
The Portland city council's recent decision to include in its latest public employee contract negotiations a two percent pay raise and cost-of-living increase while making no change to PERS and health insurance contributions, (city pays 95% health, 100% PERS) which means also increasing total benefit costs. This recently approved contract with 914 armed public employees runs blindly contrary to the reality of recession, 10.6% unemployment and a state budget shortfall of 3.5 billion dollars.