Brad's Bunker

By Brad Lawrence

THE BUNKER INDEX

Lyon County Taxes - retraction / correction / comments

_{March 29, 2006}

I appreciate the letter from Mr. Josh Foli, Lyon County Comptroller, and agree to an extent, but I did not intend to purposely mislead the readers in my article on taxes in Lyon County.

I fail to see where our figures differ. I inserted no zero's in the figure for the schools as Mr. Foli indicated. I said . 75% and he says I wrote .0075%. The actual number was .75%. No difference at all that I can see.

Now what I WILL admit to is a mistake when comparing the percentages of the Fernley Pool, the General Fund and School funds. In my article I stated that the Fernley Pool was receiving more than either of those, and I thank Mr. Foli for pointing out that they don't. I made a mistake. Mea culpa, mea culpa. The only excuse for this glaring error I can think of is that I was overwhelmed with the amount of taxes being taken by the Fernley Pool and had brain freeze.

To bring home my point , I feel it important to mention the property tax rates in a general way.

• The Fernley Pool gets MORE of our tax money than the following:
• North Lyon County Fire District
• Fernley City
• The State of Nevada
• Plus the indigents, China lake, Co-op ext. (whatever that is); and Surplus
• Building tax.

The only items which get more than the pool are;

• Schools and the Lyon County General Fund.

Now does that seem a little nuts to you? It does to me.

My major complaint was that IF the pool had gotten along with a .2% tax percentage rate when we had a lot less homes (and that was before they had paid off the original bond mind you), they should be able to get along with less of a percentage rate now that we have had a housing boom.

Since our taxes include ALL buildings, old and new, that means they're able to tax almost twice the number of improved structures. AND they have the original bond paid off. Yet they STILL get the same percentage of taxes on the old AND the new properties. And as if that's not enough, they've asked for yet another 750,000 dollar indebtedness for us to pay off in addition to the aforementioned taxes. AND may have found a way to get it WITHOUT having to have a vote on it.

Oh my achin' wallet.

So here is my retraction:

I made a mistake in the comparisons between the pool, the school, and the general fund. It won't happen again, I promise..

But what I WILL keep writing about is what I consider the outrageous waste of taxpayer money which is sanctioned by Lyon County, under the unlikely name of the Fernley Pool.