Danville City Council member Dan Duncheon says he thinks raising the Public Safety Pension fee would be a more equitable way of paying-off a police and fire pension debt. Mayor Scott Eisenhauer had proposed adjustments in both property taxes and the Public Safety Pension fee.
Some landlords attended Tuesday evening’s meeting of the Public Services Committee of the Danville City Council to express their concerns about how higher taxes or fees might impact them. One of them, Jerry Hawker (shown here), fears the hikes could impact poor people. ‘’I think just by lowering the assessment for the people in the higher assessed areas and raising it for the lower assessed, there again is putting an undue burden not only on landlords, but also for our poorer people,’’ said Hawker.
Mayor Eisenhauer notes something needs to be done in order to pay-off the pension debt. ‘’Regardless of what we do – they’re going to be impacted. If we just raise property tax they’re going to be impacted because quite frankly they don’t get the exemptions that home-owners get,’’ said the Mayor. ‘’They don’t get an owner exemption. They don’t get a senior exemption. They don’t get a disabled exemption,’’ added Eisenhauer. ‘’If we just raise the Public Safety Pension Fee, they’re going to get hit in that.’’
Committee chairman Steve Nichols is concerned raising either property taxes or the Public Safety Pension fee could have an adverse effect. ‘’Everything everybody said was accurate. But it’s also accurate to say that if we continue down the path we’re going – where we have continued high pension costs, and we keep taxing the same people over and over again – they’re just going to move 15 miles to Indiana or move up the road.’’
The proposals being considered would pay-off the city’s $105-million dollar pension debt over the next 22 years. Duncheon suggested raising the Public Safety Pension Fee to $20 a month. But committee members were told it would still require raising the property tax rate from its current $2.04 per $100 of equalized assessed value to $2.26.
