It seems Clallam County commissioners played another shell game with property owners in the midst of an economic crisis by raising property taxes in two different funds by 1 percent each so it doesn’t meet the 2 percent rule that would have triggered a mandated vote of the people.
Why do this?
To shuffle money around in order to kowtow before labor unions and maintain their standard of living upon the backs of property owners.
If our commissioners wanted a balanced budget, they should have declared a fiscal emergency and renegotiated expensive labor contracts through salary and benefit freezes, reductions, or laying off employees to reduce non-statutory services.
There are many of these services so don’t buy any commissioner’s “unfunded mandate” misleading statement as the primary cause of the county’s budget shortfalls.
These constant property tax increases where money is shuffled around to pay salary and benefits increases are out of control.
In the past two years, my personal home property taxes have increased $657 a year (17.7 percent) without any additions or remodeling.
That real number is impacting a retiree living on a fixed income.
How many more Clallam County seniors have just been impacted by the commissioner’s fiscally irresponsible 2 percent increase when seniors will only see a 1.3 percent cost of living increase for 2021?
The private sector has been forced to cut in this economic crisis, and responsible government should follow suit.
Maybe it’s time to face some realism and lead by making hard decisions.
Al McNeil
Port Angeles