LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Todd Stanton, Seward County Commission
As the saga of the greatest tax hike in Seward County history continues courtesy of the Taxing Trio (as they have been dubbed by this paper) much media and social media coverage centers upon troubling facts uncovered by citizen investigators.
But, let's together examine how we ended up here. Perhaps you, too, will view it as one of the greatest cons ever perpetrated upon our citizens. We can name it The Great Bait and Switch.
How the con originated remains murky though it emerged as the necessity of a massive property tax hike in order to bank funds to reimburse a taxpayer at a future date when a court decision would require that. Various figures were seen including an astounding $5.9 million floated in town halls though it turns out that figure was a worst case scenario for all taxing entities involved, not just the County portion. How such a figure was not verified by the County Administrator is a question for another day though it represents a multi-million dollar error. And, there you have the bait: $5.9 million would have to be repaid resulting in a Revenue Neutral Rate (RNR) letter warning of a massive tax hike with nearly all of it clearly stated as required to pay an unknown legal judgment.
In the County Commission meeting where the RNR and budget proposal were discussed we were regaled with woes of “the payback” and stories of budget cuts to be heroically endured. Of course, there were no budget cuts. The budget was increasing significantly. Commissioner Helm had just over $2 million in proposed reductions to be examined. This was ignored. A suggestion by myself of considering a 4 mill increase? Ignored. The elected County Treasurer had independently arrived at the same 4 mill figure as being sufficient.
So where's the Switch? With millions claimed to be necessary for the repayment of a judgment yet to be rendered, there was a measly $500,000 actually itemized in the budget for this purpose – a mere 12.5% of the total increase. A budget requiring a 13.5 mill increase was prepared some days ahead of the meeting indicating that some believed the Taxing Trio had arrived at their decisions before the public hearing. I am guilty of not scrutinizing that multi-page budget document to ascertain if all the funds were going where we had been told they were going in that very meeting. They weren't.
The County is now engaging a Wichita law firm for legal needs requiring specialist counsel. I approved this and it is necessary. But, what is the first task of this firm? Your tax dollars are being used to pay this firm to render legal opinions to force you to pay the radically increased taxes involved in The Great Bait and Switch.
Only time will tell if various legal challenges, including rumored pending District Court litigation against the Taxing Trio, to this atrocity are successful.
Well there you have it. Mr. Stanton is the hero of his own story. Notice however that he states that he did not scrutinize the tax increase document before the public hearing. This is code for, I wasn’t interested enough to read the document. Now he has voted to retain a Wichita law firm to help to figure out the legalities of decisions that have been made. So now the tax increase money will go to high priced lawyers instead of taxpayer needs. Sounds like our hero is really a zero. Maybe what Seward county voters should do is recall the entire Commission and start over.