SOUTH BEND — The St. Joseph County Council unanimously rejected a property tax increase to generate more money for equipment and building needs Tuesday night, and narrowly voted down a highway department restructuring plan that would have boosted pay for workers.
County Auditor Mike Hamann brought the council a proposal to increase the property tax rate that funds the Cumulative Capital Development Fund, which pays for everything from police cars to building repairs and computers. The increase would have restored the rate to its initial 1984 level of .0333, meaning it would collect 3.3 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
The fund generates about $1.5 million a year. Under the proposal, it would have brought in about $2.6 million a year.
The increase would have affected the 53 percent of property owners who aren’t already paying the statutory maximum of 1 percent of their assessed value. The tax bill on a $100,000 property would have risen about $5 a year, and the owner of a $200,000 property would have paid about $14 more a year.
“For me it becomes a category of priorities,” said Republican council member Mark Root. “Are capital developments as important to me as schools or fire districts? I’ll be honest with you, the answer is no. I’m not willing to take a dollar from our schools at this point for capital projects.”
Hamann said the fund's rate has been gradually declining since a 2004 law that allowed the state to reduce it, along with the county’s two bridge maintenance funds, to prevent them from receiving windfalls as assessed values rise. The law put the impetus on counties to re-establish the rates each year, but St. Joseph County hasn’t done so since 1990, Mike Deniston, a consultant, told the council.