Shelby County: Death by Lawyering

As expected, Shelby County's tax rate went up anyway. But at least the County Commission did it quasi-legally. The County Mayor, AC Wharton, and at least one County Commissioner had advocated a sneaky, lawyerly, "interpretation" of State law that requires the County to lower property tax rates after a reappraisal to prevent windfall tax revenues for the County.

Well, they get the windfall anyway. After voting to adjust the property tax to $3.90 per $1000, they then voted to raise the property tax in a separate motion to $4.04, effectively giving themselves the windfall.

The Commercial Appeal appeal reports that the windfall will generate at least $40 million. They report:

The vote means the county can give about $20 million in new money to city and county schools and also allocate $20 million to pay on the county's $1.7 billion debt.

That leaves out how much more money will be generated.

But it's the self-serving crap the Mayor and Commissioners spewed afterwards that really galls:

Wharton said he didn't view the vote as a true tax increase.

"It's not an increase in the sense that when you change your rate, everybody goes up, not merely those whose property values increased as a result of the reappraisal," he said.

Someone bitch-slap AC for me, OK? That kind of hair-splitting is just insulting. Will Memphians and Shelby Countians pay more tax money to the State? Then it's an increase. Dolt.

Interestingly, WPTY/24 reports:

The Shelby County property tax rate was supposed to go down to $3.72 because of reappraisals ... but the county commission decided to keep it at $4.04. If they’d gone with the lower rate, you would have saved $.32 cents.

Which was it? $3.72 or $3.90? Did the Commission skip a step in lowering rates? Is the $3.90 figure just to make a 14 cent tax increase more palatable than a 31 cent increase?

Sigh.... You'd think fact-based reporting would be easy and clear.

I wish there was more, but the "new" Commercial Appeal devotes less space to politics than before, so their reporters have to wedge a lot into less space, leaving out some of the important bits.

When some of these folks get voted out next election, just tell them they didn't lose votes, but had a rate reduction.