Un-real estate tax values So you paid $155,000 for your house just two months ago — and now the tax man says it is worth $189,000? That’s the story for one south Minneapolis homeowner, reports the Strib, and homeowners throughout the metro area are girding to do battle over assessed valuations this spring. Though home values have fallen swiftly, the taxable values set by metro-area tax authorities have not. All seven metro counties predict declines in assessed valuation of two to ten percent, although the average home sales price has fallen by one-third since September 2007. Tax assessors say the problem is the lag time in estimating values. They expect an avalanche of appeals from assessed valuations this year.
Category Archives: news
News Day: Un-real tax values / MN Stimulus /Closed U /Jail bust, not break /CIA torture /Pakistan protests /more
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News Day: Coleman campaign circus / “Don’t do anything embarrassing” / Water bill / Recount and more
Where do you get your news? The mainstream media is now jumping on board with two stories that the independent media reported first and best — the Coleman campaign caught with its donors’ credit card info hanging out on the internet and the MN House of Reps’ outrageous attempts to decide what press gets freedom of the press. If you’re reading this, you’re already reading independent media. Tell a friend!
Coleman campaign lawbreaking or “hacking”? As the mainstream media belatedly begins to cover the Coleman donor database story, ably reported by the Minnesota Independent in January and now, some are ignoring plain facts: the Coleman site was not hacked; the Coleman campaign carelessly put donors’ credit card numbers and security codes out on the internet for anyone to scoop up; the Coleman campaign violated its own promise to donors not to store their credit card numbers; the Coleman campaign probably violated MN law by not notifying donors of the security lapse back in January.
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News Day: Coleman cyber-follies / Middle class pays more /Snowing the recount / Somali youth / Cops hate Sara Jane / more
Middle class pays more Even in Minnesota, says a Department of Revenue study, rich people pay less in taxes than the middle class. See Who pays Minnesota’s taxes>
Coleman cyber-follies While Norm Coleman is calling it “chilling” and “scary,” a closer look shows that the disclosure of names and credit card information of Coleman campaign donors on the internet is the fault of no one but … the Coleman campaign, which violated basic on-line security procedures. Continue reading
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News Day: Following the (Governor’s) money / Liberian plea / EFCA job creation / Legislature looks at hijabs, foreclosures / more
Following the money for T-Paw staff The Governor’s staff is paid by money from other state agencies, reports Mark Brunswick in the Strib. The office takes money to pay for $30,000 of senior policy adviser Josh Gackle’s $72,000 annual salary from the Ag Department, PCA, DNR and at least four other agencies. The accounting practice shifts money from other state agencies to pay for parts of at least five other T-Paw aides, reducing his office budget.
[Governor Pawlenty] has said he will reduce his office budget by $360,000 a year, or 5.1 percent, and he points out that his office is planning for 38 full-time equivalent positions for the next two budget years while previous administrations had 55 positions at their peak.
The arrangements that pay for Gackle and the other staffers will continue to help make this apparent frugality possible. So-called interagency agreements reduced the governor’s office budget by more than $700,000 last year, about 19 percent.
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News Day: Unemployment / Bad news for bus riders / Nick speaks! / Pigs flying? / Viking stadium / Outrage of the day / Wonk alert / more
Unemployment up even more than expected national unemployment figures jumped to 8.1%, even more than expected, rising half a percent in the last month, with the economy shedding 651,000 jobs. Rates for blacks (13.4 percent) and Hispanics (10.9 percent) continue higher than the average, while the jobless rate for teen-agers continues at a whopping 21.6 percent.
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News Day: Housing rescue / Tough rental market / Klobuchar=Blue Dog? / Headscarves and drivers’ licenses / Education, OSHA, Tibet, more
Housing rescue The Obama administration housing plan has two main thrusts, reports AP: refinancing mortgages for up to five million and modifying loan payments for up to four million. Both plans are limited to people who live in their mortgaged homes. The refinancing plan is available to borrowers who owe no more than five percent more than their home’s current value, and whose loans are held by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The loan modification program would pay lenders to put borrowers into loans with interest rates as low as 2 percent for two years, then rising to 5 percent.
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News Day: More on MN deficit and recession
March 4: Back to school / MN Job Watch / TCF and TARP / TOP SECRET no longer / Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and more
Budget deficit: Day 2 In the aftermath of the revelation that the economic stimulus will keep the red ink from rising higher, lawmakers and the governor are back to sparring over how to make up the $4.6 billion deficit. A trio of MPR reports gives context: State Finance Commissioner Tom Hanson warned that the long-term problem will get worse, with a $5.1 billion deficit forecast for 2012-13, and that the economic stimulus is a one-time rescue that does not solve the structural problem.
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News Day: Feds rescue MN budget deficit
March 3: More news — Coleman asks for new election / Cut, cut, cut / Medicare paying off insurance companies / City Council putting brakes on Central Corridor plans? / Lock ’em up / MN Job Watch
MN budget deficit: better news MPR reports that the budget projections due out later this morning will show good news for Minnesotans, with federal stimulus money riding to the rescue. Without the federal aid, the two-year deficit was projected to grow to $6.4 billion, but with the aid, it will shrink to $4.57 billion (from the previously-projected $4.8 billion.) That’s about the only good news, with unemployment up, tax revenues down, and the Guv stlll insisting on balancing the budget by slashing LGA and other state expenditures and refusing to consider tax increases.
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News Day: It’s the economy (and the budget deficit and the CitiGroup and AIG bailouts)
More March 2 stories: The weather! / Facebook and Lent / Recount / Scam alert / Momos and pizza / Head scarves and gangbangers? / Some good news! / Welfare freeze / Miss North Dakota arrested in Iran
Stormy weather ahead Billions in bad news is expected when State economist Tom Stinson issues the next state budget forecast on Tuesday, writes Bill Salisbury in the PiPress. In December, Stinson forecast the $4.85 billion deficit that has had everybody from the capitol to city hall scrambling to slash budgets, and the betting is that the new prediction will be $6 or $7 billion.
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News Day: Budget, ballots, bishops, Bill Holm and more
February 27, 2009
The Budget Obama’s ten-year budget plan lays it all out, including a record $1.75 trillion deficit this year and, for the first time, putting the war costs into the budget.
The Ballots The three-judge panel reversed itself on Thursday, allowing testimony from a Republican election judge despite the Coleman legal team’s violation of rules of civil procedure — and thereby eliminated one possible grounds for appeal of their eventual decision.
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Mary Turck