War of Words, Numbers Waged in York

By Desiree Parker Thursday, May 27, 2010

Tensions threaten to boil over in York County as various residents and government officials argue over whether real estate tax rates are too high.

An informal group of county residents, calling themselves the Tuscany’s Group, have been meeting on a regular basis at Tuscany’s coffee shop on Route 17 and Denbigh Boulevard to discuss their displeasure with decisions made by government officials. One of their members, Realtor Greg Garrett, sent out an email this week to hundreds of people arguing supervisors are not being accurate about the increase in tax collections from real estate taxes due to increasing property assessments.

Garrett used the Freedom of Information Act to request various tax data over the last five years. County staff told him that in 2003, the county received $36.5 million in real estate taxes. In 2008, they collected $55 million. In a random sample of over 400 county residents, real estate bills for residents increased by 47 percent. Based on numbers staff collected on average tax bills for homeowners, residents paid an average of 50 percent more in 2008 than in 2003.

“Citizens expect elected officials to be honest, forthright and not manipulate the statistics we are given in regard to the tax increases our representatives imposed on us,” Garrett wrote in his email, addressed to District 1 Supervisor Walt Zaremba. Garrett says Zaremba claimed at a Tuscany’s group meeting that taxes had increased about 12 percent.

Zaremba argues Garrett hasn’t taken into account the inflation rate, which Zaremba says is 22 percent, and Garrett says is 17 percent.
The email demands answers to the following questions: “Why did you and the other BoS members… raise our taxes on Real Estate approx 50% during this 5 year period? Why did you allow spending in York County to increase so far ahead of the inflation rate? Why can't you just admit the ‘facts’ and not try to put a spin on what you and the other leaders have done?  What are you going to do now to reduce our taxes and reduce the government expansion and spending?”

Garrett tells WYDaily he wants supervisors to admit the true tax increase amount, and adjust the tax rate down so that tax collections remain at the same amount plus an increase for inflation. He says they haven’t yet made an argument for collecting and spending the additional amount.

“Either the supervisors don’t know how much they raised spending, or they are purposefully giving us the wrong answers,” Garrett says. “There’s no third choice…they need to explain to us why taxes need to increase over inflation.”

Zaremba responded to Garrett’s email, saying, “Yes, tax collections increased considerably during the period you reference. So did the population, number of residences, school children, commercial square footage, and the Consumer Price Index, which, I am sure you understand, measures the growth of inflation during any given period of time.”

Zaremba told the Tuscany’s group that the effective increase in real estate property taxes adjusted for inflation between 2003 and 2008 was 12 percent, while residential property tax collections increased 16 percent. The property tax rate has dropped from 86 cents for every $100 in assessed property value down to 66 cents, he also said.

According to York County Administrator James McReynolds, “tax collections did go up considerably but a significant portion of that increase was due to new construction, not action the Board took in regard to the tax rate.”

He says the supervisors have continued to lower the tax rate over the past five years, and that “the Board stated each time the tax rate was decreased, even though the rate was being lowered there was still an effective tax increase because assessments went up more than the rate was lowered.”

Adjusting for inflation and taking out new construction and improvements over the five-year period, real estate tax collections increased 12 percent and residential property tax collections increased about 16 percent, McReynolds says, which is in line with Zaremba’s numbers. For fiscal year 2011 there was an effective tax decrease due to a total tax assessment base decrease of about 1.4 percent.

“No one has come to the supervisors meetings recently to raise this [issue],” Zaremba says. He argues everyone on the board is a Republican – like the Tuscany’s group - and believes in the party’s goals. “There are certainly places any budget can be tightened,” he says, but overall he thinks the board has done a good job of managing spending.

People are “frustrated with the federal government, and the state, who dumps on localities, but they can reach out and vent their frustration on the municipality,” Zaremba says. Also, he points out that Garrett “made his fortune selling real estate here, and now he’s challenging that system and has his numbers wrong.”