The failure here was in a new section.....water went over the concrete wall then undercut the "dry" side.....this was in a water return canal used by the pumping system. They had spent about $40 million last year and like amounts or more each year all through the past decade. Rod
As has been so clearly demonstrated in the past 36 hours, the proof of the above is in the pudding.
Once again, this country would do well to forego the current crop of "emergency managers", with their know-it-all, we know what's best for you, condescending attitudes, observed firsthand in my personal experience with the current school of thought in "emergency management" during TS Allison in
2001, again in this very thread, and shortly thereafter, and tragically, during this aftermath of Katrina.Military combat operations are the epitome of "emergency management", and there is no one better trained in leadership and _effective utilization of resources_ than those trained and experienced in same.
We already have them, we've already paid to train them, and we need to make a calculated effort to utilize that prior investment in a civilian capacity, and with a special emphasis in the homeland security department. In these times ... yours and my kids lives may soon depend on it.
The past 36 hours amply proves the point, without question, or yahbuts.
Not disagreeing with what you are saying above. but I'm wondering why we are becoming so dependent upon the federal government to solve all of our problems. Much of the problems observed in the past 72 hours could better have been solved at the local level with adequate preparation. Certainly, federal help for the evacuation and re-build are needed; but the initial preparation should have been accomplished at the city, then state levels.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Not arguing, just wondering, but haven't the big problems always been "solved" at that level? Wars, civil war, the great depression ... and this was a biggie.
It's taken close to 40,000 troops and they're just getting started. Louisiana, mostly rural, has always had a high proportion of its population in poverty, and I am not so sure that it had the resources under the best of circumstances, particularly when you consider how the population density has increased the past twenty years..
Flying over any part of the country today and looking down, as opposed to 40 years ago, you can't help but be aware of the remarkable increase in populated area. We may well have passed the point of state and local governments being 'resourceful' enough to handle any situation of similar impact.
Absolutely agree, the aftermath for a problem of this proportion will require help from across the country. I would prefer to see more private charitable help, but federal help restoring and keeping order is also important. It looks like, once again, Americans are stepping up to the challenge and doing right, organizing and donating to help those in need. We spent a good portion of our morning Bible class discussing ways to help those being bussed into the Tucson Convention Center, to the point of people asking whether we could help some of them enroll in our school. It also is gratifying to see that Kuwait is offering to donate $500M to the disaster.
That is going to be a major challenge
OTOH, when you look at the increase in populated area, remember that you are also looking at a corresponding increase in local property taxes and other tax revenue. If state and local governments are resourceful enough to handle that kind of tax growth, they should also be using some of that revenue for disaster planning.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+Mark & Juanita wrote: ...
Residential taxes are never sufficient to even cover the cost of basic services, what more expensive additional programs.
How then are local governments able to provide those services?
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Hit "send" too soon. You are also forgetting that, in addition to the property taxes there are the corresponding sales taxes, city taxes added to utilities and other services, as well as taxes on the businesses that support those residences.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
No, I didn't forget any of that. I only said that residential property taxes are not sufficient in themselves to justify growth. It's a mantra often used by people as a reason for growth but it doesn't pay.
It takes all the business and other taxes to help subsidize the property tax, if you will.
I would really like to see some data backing that assertion up. Given that most homes reside on 1/4 to 1/3 acre lots, and, in my area at least generate approximately $3k per year in local property taxes, that's approximately $6k to $9k per acre per year in property taxes. Infrastructure is typically paid by the developer and passed through to the home-owner, so the only infrastructure cost with the neighborhood streets is maintenance. That leaves schools, and police and fire. Given that the sales taxes are, for the most part, also paid by the homeowners local to their area, this hardly seems to be "subsidizing" property taxes nor does it reduce the assertion that growth will increase tax revenue. (i.e, if those folks were not in the developed area, they would not be paying those sales taxes through those businesses. Nor, in many cases would those businesses be located in that area because no market would exist for their products. While some of the effects of growth are not desirable (loss of good farmland for example), the above tax argument does not seem to be a valid argument to pursue as one for opposition to growth.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
...
It's unusual in places I've been for developers to pick up all the associated costs of developments--they may put in the sewer lines in the subdivision, for example, but they don't add on to the central station for increasing it's capacity. Nor do they build the new schools and other infrastructure such as the fire department additions, et al. I don't have actual data at hand but no city in which I've resided has had individual personal property taxes which covered all the ancillary services on a per capita basis.
I don't think it would be hard to find, however. What does your city spend on such developments as well as routine services and how does that compare to the personal property tax revenues? I doubt it will cover it w/o the sizable business tax revenues.
I wasn't arguing so much against expansion, simply observing that the residential growth alone more likely than not doesn't pay its way by itself.
Over what time frame?
Well can you find figures relating total or porperty tax rate vs population density, or total tax revenue, or total tax revenue vs total population for a nice cross section of communities? or property tax rate vs population density?
Perhaps better, can you find the history of property tax rates (or total tax rates) for specific communities vs population over time and compare that to the national average change in property tax rates or total tax rates, adjusted for inflation.
Seems it would be a tough problem to address due to confounding factors like major (taxable) corporate entities moving into or out of those same communities at the same time, unless you want to consider such changes as manifestations of developement.
again though, it is not just the property taxes, but also the other taxes as well that cover the other costs -- sales and use taxes, etc. Taxes on the businesses that move in that wouldn't be there if there were not an associated increase in clientele. This obviously works, otherwise municipalities could not afford to grow and support that growth. You have to have the residential growth to get the local business growth as well. It is a combination of all those tax sources that funds the resulting infrastructure. Certainly the school growth is funded by the increases in property taxes. Not everyone who moves into these developments sends children to the schools, but they all pay an equal amount of property tax for the schools.
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
I do love the arguments we heard around here not long ago, though: one particularly yuppie area of the county was more or less classed as the be-all and end-all of county tax support. Houses in the $300,000 range, three kids per house, high end jobs. Basic problem: a 300K house around here pays about $1800-$2000 in RE taxes. It costs close to 5K to educate one kid. Other taxes? Many, maybe most, of these people work in a close by city, not in the area where they live. They shop in that city, they entertain themselves in that city. The actual savior of the tax situation is at the other end of the county, on lakefront property that has gotten insanely expensive over the past three decades. Average house in and around that lake? $300,000. Mostly retirees. Average number of schoolkids per household? Nada. There are some of course, but probably not one in twenty. Shopping, though, may be done one county over (better malls, if that's not a contradiction in terms), but much is done in county. There's not even a high school really close by the lake and there are never any complaints about that. With 754 square miles, and maybe 63,000 people, the county skims by, but the building continues apace in the yuppie area, and much more slowly in the lake area. There's only so much lake and lake access land. Sooner or later, the balance is going to be lost, and people are in for a major surprise when the tax rates change.
A 300K house here pays about $9000/year in taxes, a little more than half of that is school taxes. Basic problem is the kid's don't get educated, racism (mostly reverse) is rampant, and benefits for the educrats far exceed what you or I will ever be able to afford.
You're trying to make much more out of what I said than what I said, Mark. :)
But, you come back and reinforce my point--that residential expansion on its own is generally a net loss revenue-wise for municipalities despite a general perception to the contrary. It was because there is that general perception that I made the observation.
(BTW, where it was made clear to me was while taking a series of classes in planning while sitting on a City/County Planning Commission in TN. That's been quite some time ago now, but I doubt the general trends are much different now than then.)
What's really significant is changes in local population and revenues versus requirements for capital improvements and services, discounting commercial entity-generated revenues. What is almost universally found is that the non-business revenues simply aren't sufficient owing to (relatively) low evaluation. (While a $300k house seems quite expensive in some areas, compared to the evaluation of even a small industrial or manufacturing facility, it's chump-change.)
There's some difficulty in separating out, but the tax revenues paid by corporate entities are able to be separated in most jurisdictions pretty easily. A major more recent exacerbating problem tends to be the sizable rebates offered by municipalities to lure business which appears to be leading to a different form of the "arms race".
As the very proud father of a Coastie, thank you. It's amazing the things they do.
In my twenty years in the Navy I said many disparaging things about them, as well as the Marines, Army, Air Force, National Guard, and especially about Reserves, but it was always in jest. They are all to be remembered and appreciated.
jmac
Ah, hell. I know. Here, the bennies almost outweight the salaries, which are slightly on the low side, but given expenses in the area (things like a very decent townhouse two bedroom apartment for $450 a month, low car insurance, lowest [until last week] gas prices except for a couple spots in NC, and on), a starting salary of about 30K doesn't seem all that bad to me. But these kids want to be out of school and outearning daddy and mommy put together.
Add that to a total refusal to accept even the concept of merit pay--my wife's oldest teaches Latin and music (choir or chorus) at a local HS, is beyond competent and hates the idea of merit pay. You figure it out. I can't.
Bennies. Oh, yeah. They are not as good as they were a decade ago. Teachers now have to pay half their health insurance costs, IIRC. And they can't reture until something like 58, instead of 55. That is, they can't retire at whatever the bigger percentage of their pay was.
It's a bitch to have to work all of 33 years to get full retirement. Or so I get told, as I approach 44 years, without even sensible partial retirement, and with my health insurance primarly what VA is allowed to dole out each year (plus Medicare, which I guess VA accepts).
I tell ya, I really, really feel for the plight of the American HS teacher these days. (Actually, inner city teachers, yeah. I'd want a squad of Marines to back me up there.)
By the way, a 300K house here, if it's not on the lake, is very large (3500+ square feet), full air, zoned heat and air, and about every amenity you can think of. A pretty decent house, 2400 or so SF set up and ready to go except for furniture, probably runs 190K. The average house is selling for 149K, 1800 SF, AC, etc.
My guess is that most of them will collapse a year after the mortgage is paid off.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.