At today’s meeting of the St. Louis County Council, Councilman Greg Quinn, R-7th District, plans to put in his 2 cents — or rather, call for the county “to roll back its property tax rate by 2 ¢” for the coming year.

“The bill will provide for the reduction of the tax rate for the Debt Service Fund from 6.3 ¢ to 4.3 ¢,” Quinn said in a release. “This property tax rate reduction will not require any cut backs in existing County services.

“For a number of years, the tax rate for the Debt Service Fund has been set substantially higher than the rate that is needed to generate sufficient revenue to make the annual payments on the County’s bonded indebtedness.

“In 2008, $15,018,952 will be needed to make the payments on the bonds the County has issued. However, the present tax rate, plus interest income earned on the fund balance, will generate about $17,705,000, which is almost 20% more than is needed to pay the expense that will come due in 2008.
“The consequence of maintaining the tax substantially higher than what is needed to pay bonded indebtedness is that the citizens of St. Louis County are paying more taxes than the amount which is needed to meet the County’s obligations.

“At the end of 2006, the Debt Service Fund contained $22,814,509, which was approximately 1 ½ times the annual bond payments required during the subsequent year (2007).”

Quinn says his proposed 2 ¢ “will result in a fund balance of about $23,634,000 which is more than the balance in the fund at the end of 2006 and 1 ½ times the $15,018,952 in payments the County must make on bonded indebtedness in 2008.”

His action is prompted, he said, by this year’s county reassessment, which “resulted in an average increase of about 22% in the assessed value of homes in the county and a corresponding increase in property taxes owed.

Quinn continued, “…In a year when reassessment has caused county taxpayers to pay significantly more taxes, county government must look for ways to reduce the tax burden on its citizens. This is one of those ways.”

What isn’t clear from Quinn’s statements is how much the average county property owner would save by virtue of the 2-cent drop in the tax rate.