City should address county's tax increases

I am writing to urge the Cleveland Heights city administration and members of city council to coordinate a forum to address the recent county tax increases. Council and the administration cannot directly intervene in county policy, but can and should convene a discussion for citizens to interact and ask legitimate questions.  

In a single tax cycle, the county’s assessed values have increased by as much as 50 to 100 percent. My personal taxes increased 54 percent. In the same three-year cycle, the Consumer Price Index outpaced wages by 300 percent (like many, I live on a fixed income, i.e., a wage growth of zero). I am being commanded to cough up more than $8,000 annually—17 percent of my pension—to live in a 108-year-old, largely original and un-modernized 2,000-square-foot house in a not particularly desirable area of Cleveland Heights, let alone Northeast Ohio. Incredible.

The argument that this massive increase reflects the gap between the county’s assessed value and actual market value is disingenuous. This tangential justification is a distraction from the real issue: how many after-tax dollars residents are being billed. The county’s assessed value has little to no influence on the market or sale price of a property. In contrast, cost of ownership is a large driver, and any real estate agent will tell you that many prospective buyers decline to locate to Cleveland Heights due to our disproportionally high taxes. The county is doing no one any favors here, except for itself.

In actuality, the county is forcibly requiring homeowners to take out liens (in effect, second mortgages) against the future value of their properties. However, instead of using the derived income for their own benefit, they are commanded instead to give it to the county.

The misplaced argument about the “hidden capital” in our properties does nothing for those with no immediate plans to sell, or recent buyers who already shoulder large mortgages based on current market values. Courtesy of the county, they have the privilege of being penalized twice. Like many, I purchased a home as a long-term investment—an investment for me, not for the operating expenses of Cuyahoga County.

The county’s calculus is quite simple: “We do not have to justify this enormous increase. We do not have to care what taxpayers think. We do not have to provide any reasonable avenues of recourse to contest these increases. We are free to do this simply because we can.”

Notably, the county has not offered details on how these property-by-property increases were derived or rationalized. It has not stated what critical Malthusian collapse in services will result if this massive revenue increase is not forthcoming. It has not offered a detailed description of what increased services will occur as a result, or why these represent a justifiable tradeoff for those footing the bill. More to the point, it has purposefully not asked residents if they support this unimaginable increase.

All individuals and organizations have to live within their means, and it is unclear why the county feels justified in its expectation that it has a unique and privileged standing to declare by fiat that residents can fork out enormous and disproportionate sums of cash. No organization in good faith approves on its own behalf a revenue increase of this magnitude. The tone deafness and detached arrogance of this action is beyond description—a poster child for disengaged government at its worst

Taxpayers need to keep in mind that this is our government and our money, and we do not have to accept policies that the majority of residents do not support.