The chairman of the County Board of Commissioners says Mecklenburg’s property tax rate needs to be “reasonable.” What Parks Helms means by that is anyone’s guess, but the county’s own performance report finds the county’s tax rate already out of whack.
The county says property taxes eat up 2.10 percent of household income. The goal is to do what other similar North Carolina jurisdictions live on, which is only 1.72 percent of household income. This gap would seem to indicate that Mecklenburg’s tax rate is unreasonable.
More importantly, the current tax burden helps explain why voters rejected the $427 million bond package in November. Passage would’ve virtually mandated another tax increase on top of the one Helms rammed through last year. Helms does not get this connection. He thinks voters who opposed the bonds are somehow ill-informed and must “become engaged” in the community. They are engaged, Parks. Just not the way you want them to be.
