Taking a look at a few things that crossed my desk and my mind recently:
“Tax shock looms” was the top headline in last Wednesday’s paper. For now, a state-encouraged increase in property valuations is being labeled as the culprit.
One friend suggested that the increase was no surprise, because if the state is going to eliminate income taxes, it has to find money elsewhere.
Well, maybe. But the problem is that the state, as far as I know, doesn’t get any property taxes. All that money goes to counties, cities and school districts.
I got curious and checked. The property tax on my home in McComb will increase by about $250 in January. That is about a 12% to 15% gain from what Mary Ann and I paid this year.
That’s pretty steep, especially if the same increase applies to owners of commercial buildings, which generally have a higher value than homes. Increasing those taxes by anything close to what I’m facing will hurt. A fairer estimate of an increase may be 9%, which is how much the assessed value of all property has increased.
County supervisors can do something about this. They left the millage rate unchanged from this year, but because of the higher values, the same millage will bring in a lot more money.
The county’s new budget year begins Oct. 1, so it’s very late to start making big changes. It takes money to run government, but supervisors ought to think about how much they want property taxes to increase in just one year.
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One local government issue that may be easier to solve — or may not be — is how to move forward with the 911 service.
The service is currently managed by the city of McComb, but Pike County has some concerns and has proposed changes. If McComb has responded with an alternate idea, it has not been made public.
I haven’t followed the discussion more closely than reading the stories in the newspaper. But I can say there do not need to be two separate 911 systems in Pike County, one for McComb and another for everyone else. That makes no sense at all.
If it’s true that several dispatcher jobs are open, and that the pay is too low to attract capable people, that will be fairly easy to fix. (Maybe this helps explain why supervisors are looking for extra property tax money?)
The city and county have bickered in the past. Remember the big fight a few years ago over an appointment to the airport board? Hopefully some officials realize that 911 is not a hill to be won in battle, and they are able to craft a solution everyone can accept.
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On a lighter topic, I had a good football conversation with another friend about the New Orleans Saints.
“Tell me why we did not draft Jaxson Dart,” he said, referring to the Saints choosing someone besides the Ole Miss quarterback with the eighth pick.
“Because we needed an offensive lineman,” I said. The New York Giants ultimately traded up to get Dart with the 25th pick, and the Saints got quarterback Tyler Shough in the second round.
Besides, I told him, if the Saints are as “not good” this year as everyone predicts, that gives us a chance to get Arch Manning in 2026. My friend admitted that would be extremely cool, and we then discussed Manning’s subpar game last week in Texas’ loss to Ohio State.
What if Manning stays in college till the 2027 draft, as his grandfather suggested? That means the Saints have to be bad for two years. With our luck lately, that could happen.
