The Survey Says: Raise My Taxes

By: Mr. Wilson on June 4, 2009
3 comments
The "Taking Charge" survey results are in, and most of the 1,800 respondents support a property tax increase to cover at least some expenses. I'll let you guess what the LJS commenting community has to say about that. All sorts of information is available online, including the final report [PDF] and host of background information from the Public Policy Center, and also be sure you have read the Mayor's Progress Measures & Program Prioritization 2009 - 2010. So what did the survey find? Let's check out the executive summary:
  • Safety and Security are Lincolnites' top priority (40% of the online survey respondents
  • 83% want to keep pools open, 43% via property tax increases and 40% by cutting hours. [What about raising fees?]
  • 83% want to maintain stormwater and floodplain review services provided by the City of Lincoln, 68% via fees from developers and home buyers and 15% via taxes.
  • 81% want to keep libraries open, 42% via property taxes.
  • 71% want to raise taxes to maintain the current after school youth programs intended to reduce youth crime.
  • 70% want to increase taxes to pay for health screening for the homeless.
  • Two-thirds support taxes for anti-West Nile efforts.
  • 62% support taxes to pay insurance costs for senior volunteers (with a 2-for-1 Federal match).
  • 60% support using property taxes to maintain asbestos inspections of buildings.
  • 73% want to halt tax funding for Health Department air quality investigations.
  • 71% don't support taxes to keep the Pioneers Park Nature Center free; 49% support using fees instead.
  • 63% don't support drafting and reviewing annexation agreements.
  • Nearly 60% prefer to eliminate the comprehensive youth tobacco-use prevention program.
  • For 5 of 6 Parks and Rec programs, 55% or more want the programs to be fee-supported rather than tax funded.
  • Lincolnites are split on whether to support planting as many trees along streets as are removed.
  • Lincolnites are split on whether to require mowing weeds at 6 inches or 12 inches.
  • Lincolnites are split on whether LPD should continue to write accident reports when nobody is injured.
  • Lincolnites are split on whether a variety of "neighborhood protection" activities should continue.
  • Lincolnites are split on providing tax funding for Municipal Band concerts.
...and so on. There's a lot of stuff in there and I strongly encourage you to check it out for yourself. I haven't had time to fully digest all of it myself. So two questions for you. First, what parts of the survey results do you agree with, and which do you oppose? Second, we're all but certain to face a combination of tax increases, fee increases, and service eliminations. Where do you think we will see each of those three things?

Comments

See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.

Gene
June 4, 2009 at 12:59PM

I’d be interested in knowing how much of the cost of the pools is supported by the fees that you mentioned.

Peter
June 4, 2009 at 6:03PM

“Coby Mach, executive director of the Lincoln Independent Business Association, agrees with Camp.

“The survey is worthless, the results are not only unscientific, but when you have questions that contain errors, all you get is bad information,” said Mach. “I think it’s unfortunate that the mayor would use any information from this survey,” he said.”

I agree.

I think this is completely absurd.  Does anyone actually believe that 70% of the population of any city would like to raise taxes to provide health screening for the homeless? 

I can’t believe that local politicians are taking this for a serious survey.  How easy was it for special interest groups to skew the results?  And if they wanted to poll the citizens in a scientific fashion,  there are some local companies like Gallup or National Research who would probably give a nice discount for doing a REAL survey. 

This was no different the the license plate debacle.

Peter
June 4, 2009 at 7:09PM

Yet another oddity of this Survey.

2000 census list 33.3% of Lincoln as having a bachelor’s degree or better. 

SURVEY SAYS:  68% with bachelor’s degree or better, with 28% having Master’s or PhD’s.  Gee.. I wonder who’s doing the survey?

I guess there’s been a bunch of schooling in the last 9 years.

I’ll try to find more when I have time…

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