Presiding commissioner urges caution on Senate Bill 756

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Perry County Presiding Commissioner Mike Sauer cautions senior adult homeowners hoping to take advantage of Senate Bill 756 to reduce their property tax liability that it may not be as good a deal as they’ve been led to believe.

“It’s been a mess statewide,” Sauer said. “To start out with, there’s a lot of confusion. A lot of people out there think it’s going to remove their real estate tax. It does not. It freezes their tax where it is now. Now, this is where it gets ugly. It’ll freeze your tax for now, but if you make any changes to your residence, like an addition or remodel — or if you sell — it’s all null and void and then it goes back to where it should be. It’s real catchy, and there are so many moving parts.”

Sauer said the county commission has been trying to figure out the bill's details so that it can be implemented properly in Perry County.

“We know that some counties are being told they’re going to get sued by the tax entities that are going to be losing money once this gets enacted, so we’re trying to stall on this to make sure we don’t get into that situation,” he explained. We’re holding off until we get a few more questions answered. There are 40 or 50 questions out there that the county collectors and assessors are asking to get answers to — and they’re getting their answers really, really slow — like three or four questions at a time. It’s taken a month to get those answers.”

According to Sauer, the county commissioners are already aware of a hefty expense the county will have to pay to enact the law.

“We have to purchase a program that’s going to cost over $20,000,” he said, “and it’s going to cost at least $3,000 in maintenance to keep it up each year. And we’re going to have to hire a couple of people to do this. So, does it make sense to freeze people’s taxes knowing we’re going to have to spend more county taxpayers’ money to do that? And then, where do we get these tax dollars back to help these entities out that are going to lose tax dollars?

“So, basically what we’re saying is, if we freeze your taxes — and I’m eligible myself — so, if we freeze your taxes and my taxes, somewhere along the line, we’re going to have to make up those dollars somehow. That means our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay the price when they get old enough, and they start paying taxes because they’re the ones that are going to be paying taxes up until they get to 62.”
Sauer explained that the county commission doesn’t want to jump into something they don’t fully understand and create a mess for county taxpayers.

“We meet about this around once a month with our collector and assessor and the clerk’s office and have a discussion to see where we’re at. We’re getting a little more information each time, but we’re still not comfortable. As soon as we get a little further, we will definitely come out and give information. I was all for giving a huge statement explaining all this in the paper. However, all the rest of the groups are saying, ‘Let’s hold off before we say something.’ We shouldn’t say, ‘that isn’t true’ or something that’s going to change. So, that’s pretty much the information we have for now.”