Local government shouldn't compete

Susan Sarkauskas wrote a very good article in Sunday's paper. I hope she will write some follow-ups.

For example: When we moved to Batavia over 20 years ago, it took two incomes to qualify to buy our modest home. We were able to afford our mortgage payment, PMI, insurance, utilities and other costs - until our real estate taxes continued to increase year after year! We've had to endure numerous school and park district referendums and we've been told that keeping the value of our properties up is extremely important.

When we bought our house, it had been on the market for over a year. The same is true of many homes listed for sale in our neighborhood today. The fact that we paid less for our home than the tax assessor had valued it was totally ignored until we challenged our assessment.

Upon doing the research, I found that many homes in the area had been overassessed. As with our home, those homes sold for less than they were valued by the tax assessor. I have stated that the tax assessor raising values on existing homes based on sales of homes amounts to a tax on unrealized capital gains and doesn't take into account renovations that might have been done on the homes that sold for the higher value or economic factors that would have actually decreased values.

Nor can those capital gains be realized by people who are simply living in and maintaining their homes. Expenses of upkeep are not tax deductible until the home is sold.

We have paid nearly as much in real estate taxes over the 20-plus years we've lived in our home as we originally paid for our house! We've paid much more in real estate taxes than we've paid down on our mortgage.

Thus, I explain to the people who ask me about Batavia: "The town is great. The people are great. Don't worry about your ability to pay your mortgage if you qualify for one. What you really need to worry about is the continuous increase in valuation by the tax assessor, either through the assessment or via the equalization factor. Then you have to take into consideration all these referendums that raise your taxes. If you can't afford a $300 to $1,000 increase in real estate taxes each year, then you probably shouldn't think about buying a home in Batavia.

Our school district and our park district do a tremendous sales job on our residents. But they both tend to ignore several very important facts:

Government serves the people.

Government should not compete with local businesses. Businesses contribute to our tax base. As a result, people who use the services provided by the businesses are not paying for the infrastructure, the staffing or the equipment via tax dollars. When they stop using the facility, the expense stops.

If Batavia, or any other city, wants affordable housing, it will have to take a truthful, reasonable approach to analyzing the mechanisms that prevent it from becoming reality. Businesses should be encouraged to locate in Batavia. The park district, school district or other government entities should not consider competing with private enterprise. When a private enterprise offers services, people can control their expenses, and that business is dependent upon its ability to sell and provide desired services at a reasonable rate. It does not burden the taxpayers by bonding for building, taxing for repayment of the bonds, taxing for maintenance and staffing and equipping the facility, etc. Instead, that business provides tax dollars for the school district, the park district, the city, etc. It is cheaper in the long run for people to pay the fees to commercial enterprises (even if they are a bit higher) than it is to pay for the continuous increases in real estate taxes in addition to fees for use when the services are provided by government.

I would encourage everyone to read the park district studies and analyze them. Then check out facilities that are available commercially. Support the commercial facilities and shun adding any government sponsored facilities that compete with commercial, taxpaying businesses. That's the best way to keep property values up while reducing taxes and saving gas. If people can live where they work, then they have a vested interest in their community. That vested interest will contribute to keeping property values up without lowering our community standards.

Yvonne Dinwiddie

Batavia