Tennessee homeowners may see their taxes soar

By WILL STEWART / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

WORMSLEY

Every Warren County property owner will face a tax increase should the General Assembly resort to drastic fund-cutting options now before them, according to the County Technical Assistance Service.

CTAS officials say the failure of the state legislature to adopt a flat rate income tax puts county governments across the state in a “precarious” position.

“State legislators need to understand their inability to approve significant tax reform at their level has a serious detrimental impact on what we as elected officials do at our level,” said Bob Wormsley, executive director of the Tennessee County Services Association. “Yes, new revenues are necessary to balance next year’s budget. It’s a matter of passing them at the state level, where true reform can be accomplished, or at the local level where county governments are severely limited in their taxing ability and long-term solutions are not possible.”

One fund-cutting option is the so-called DOGS budget. An acronym for Downsizing Ongoing Government Services, this budget would slash current spending levels by $775 million, including $400 million from K-12 education, mostly in the form of teacher layoffs (an estimated 8,400 state-wide, according to the state Office of the Comptroller of the Treasury). This would mean an additional burden on county governments which, along with the state, help fund local education.

Should this option be chosen by lawmakers, Warren County stands to lose $3.07 million and would have to lay off 65 teachers, according to CTAS. To offset this reduction of state funds and keep the number of teachers at the current level would require the county to raise property tax rates an additional 67 cents.

“It is hard to imagine anyone would argue that drastic state cuts of the size which would be required, or the local property tax increase that would be needed to make up for state funding cuts would be in the best interest of the citizens of this state, particularly the children in our school systems,” said Wormsley,

Another option being considered to fund the budget is the seizure of revenues the state has traditionally shared with local governments as a way of sharing the cost of state-mandated services such as law enforcement, jails and K-12 education. Warren County’s share of lost revenues should this path be taken equals $2.35 million. An increase in the property tax rate in the amount of 52 cents would be needed to offset the loss.