Budget Watch Nevada

We’ve been itemizing the wonderful services paid through your property tax bill. We’ve already covered education and police/fire “services,” so what’s next?

My particular tax bill reads, “Medical Asst To Indigent Persons” for $128.20. Lovely. So we pay for the medical care of bums, vagrants, druggies, drunks, and other ne’re-do-wells lacking the self discipline to care for themselves and pay their bills. Unfortunately, the county hospital (UMC) is required BY LAW to provide medical care to anyone, regardless of his ability to pay. If medical care is a product or service, why is it any different than food or transportation or a TV or a cell phone or massage therapy, for which people should pay their own way?

The next item is “LV/Clark County Library” for $95.25. And a several lines below on the document is $15.77 more for “LV/Clark County Library Debt.” That’s a total of $111.02 for libraries. I may only enter a library once or twice a year. I’d rather pay $5 or $10 or $20 entry fee to use the library than force every single citizen of Clark County a hundred dollars a year for something many of them will never use. And you thought it was cool to be able to check out a book or video for “free.”

The next items are “Clark County Capital” and “Clark County Debt.” Cost: $93.46. Why they don’t include these in the other Clark County distributions, we don’t know. Government accounting, I suppose.

The next item is “Clark County Family Court” for $24.61. Finally, an expense that I feel is somewhat legitimate, since courts are needed to protect our rights (one of the VERY FEW legitimate roles for government). Of course, I don’t have any spouses or ex-spouses, or children to get caught in custody or abandonment battles, so I really shouldn’t have to pay this fee.

Next insult: $19.23 for “State Indigent Trust.” I’m not sure why I am obligated to pay for bums in Nye County and Carson City. Just think about it: with all the residential buildings and commercial properties in Clark County paying this tax, there must be tens of millions of dollars going into this account. With that money, the state ought to be able to house the homeless in suburban neighborhoods with swimming pools, clean clothes, and three squares a day. Think about that next time you consider throwing a buck to a guy standing on the off-ramp with a cardboard sign.

Continuing on: $12.82 for “State Cooperative Extension.” I think this organization is an offshoot of the University of Nevada system. I only recognize the name from some nice old lady who used to talk about gardening on KNPR radio. Why YOU have to subsidize such make-work programs for educational bureaucrats, I’ll never know.

The next item is “LVMPD Emergency 911” at a cost of $6.41. Why this is on a PROPERTY tax bill escapes me. 9-1-1 service should be run by a charity and funded by voluntary contributions and sponsorships.

The last item on my tax bill is the only one that makes good sense to me, and it’s the lowest dollar amount: $1.02 for “Las Vegas Artesian Groundwater.” I haven’t seen that sold in bottles at the convenience store, but it sounds refreshing.

Forking over all this loot to the money-grubbing government types really irks me. And to make it worse, since I own a rental property, I pay DOUBLE the above amounts with no more benefit. And don’t make the tired, deflective argument that my tenants pay that tax. They don’t; the rent they pay just barely covers the loan on the property, so I have to eat the property taxes.

In Part III of this 3-part series, we’ll look at the sneaky way the bureaucrats present the tax bill. For those of you who pay property taxes on a commercial or industrial building, feel free to post your comments to this blog, especially if the tax distribution is different from residential bills.