Western Nebraska Taxpayers Association

Published: Wednesday, July 8, 2009 4:14 AM CDT

Mike Groene, the president of the Western Nebraska Taxpayers Association, is a great asset to North Platte and Nebraska.

He is the person who will stand up to the crowd, the person who is unafraid to look at the emperor and say "he's not wearing any clothes." He is the person who will stand up to the momentum of government, the momentum of government boards and the momentum of increasing taxation.

He is undeterred in comparing the city property taxes to other similar size cities. Invariably, North Platte leads the list with the highest city property tax in the state. City officials will often refute that dubious standing, but it is difficult to refute the facts. The numbers simply don't allow for a lot of wiggle room. North Platte has repeatedly been the highest taxed city in the state and there has not been a great deal of significant changes to mitigate it.

Groene believes that government performance isn't a matter of demographics, but a matter of choice. The individuals responsible for making decisions can make a difference in expense control and that is an attitude and a determination.

In addition, there are no guarantees that increased population or increased sales receipts will reduce property tax. In fact, data indicates they have no relationship to property taxes. Only government can reduce taxes.

In North Platte, operating expenses have been managed well. However, major projects have increased indebtedness. If there are more projects to be completed, the city is in a very difficult position to add those in the near future without a significant reduction in operating expenses. The council, despite claims of no options (other than raising taxes) do have options in addressing the rec enter, the golf course and the fire department to restructure the city to eliminate or greatly reduce the losses generated by those entities.



It isn't as though those entities have not been mentioned for scrutiny, but there has been no action to meaningfully change the historic losses they produce.

As Groene would point out, eliminate those losses and the city's property tax standing would be keeping company with the bottom of the list.

Clearly, Groene doesn't accept that the only solution is more revenue for taxing entities. He believes there are other answers and there are other solutions.

We may want to listen to him.

Nebraska, according to latest census figures, is the only state within our six neighboring states that has residential population leakage. The state grew by 72,166 (from April 2000 to July 2009) but the state birth over death rate increased by 90,323. Groene theorizes that the state taxes are sufficiently high enough to drive seniors out of the state and acts as a deterrent for those who would move back.

Who can doubt that? The momentum of continuous spending has consequences and without the wherewithal to identify the problem and the fortitude to stay the course, there will not be a resolution. Nebraska Sen. Tom Hansen said last week that the interim bills for the legislature, over 100 of them, essentially are bills on how to spend money.

There are essentially no bills proposed on how to save it.

The definition of insanity is to do the same things over and over and expect different outcomes.

We suspect Groene thinks there is insanity to the current process.

We agree.