The cumulative 6.5-cent increase in taxes means the owner of a $250,000 Wilmington home is on the hook next year for $1,131 in county taxes and $831 in city taxes – a total of $162.50 more than last year.

Council members said the city’s 11 percent tax increase looks more severe than it is. Last year, the county incorrectly included exempt properties such as schools in the tax base, leading the council to set the tax lower than it should have, in effect, giving residents a tax cut.

More than 2 cents in this year’s increase is just making up for that error, which wiped millions of dollars of anticipated revenues from the city’s balance sheet, Councilman Jim Quinn said.

“People should be satisfied that we did the best we can,” he said.

The council also chose to increase taxes to fund a $3.2 million plan to pull city salaries in line with the recommendations of a recent consultant’s report, which found Wilmington wages trailed benchmark organizations by an average of 7.2 percent.

Councilman Jason Thompson was the only member to vote against parts of the budget, which was approved in four ordinances. He said it included too many pet projects and not enough cuts.

“Don’t tell me money is the only way to solve a budget issue,” Thompson said.

In other business, council earned applause Tuesday for approving the consent agenda, usually the least contentious part of their meetings.

The vote marked the first use of electronic voting in place of voice votes. Mayor Bill Saffo said Wilmington is the first city in the state to use electronic voting, which makes it immediately apparent to the audience on television how each member voted.

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20080617/ARTICLE/806170363/0/news06

• Rangel Wrote Taxes You Pay But He Doesn't WASHINGTON: Charlie Rangel stepped down as House Ways and Means chairman yesterday amid a House ethics investigation. The ethics committee last week finally admonished him for accepting corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean. News first broke of impropriety in June of 2008. While rent controlled apartments in New York City are......
• Lake County to be Reassessed to 1.5 for homeowners by 2009 Great news for the state, but more importantly for Lake County.  If you were not aware when the first information came out about changes or reassessment of taxes it was stated that all but two counties were going to benefit from the changes.  You guess Lake County was not going......
• Senate approves jobs bill to stop teacher layoffs [/caption] WASHINGTON – Congress is moving rapidly just weeks before the start of the school year to speed billions of dollars in emergency education aid to states in hopes of reversing the layoffs of tens of thousands of teachers. Some $10 billion in aid to school districts is set to......
• Credits, Deductions, Oh My! Summary of Recent Income Tax Changes I was doing research on the recent changes in income taxes for one of the planners at my office, and I came across one of the coolest sites summarizing the changes (that is if you can describe any kind of tax stuff as "cool").   I am only going to highlight those......
• How To Make Estimated Tax Payments - For the Self Employed If you don’t have your taxes taken out of a paycheck, guess what - you have to pay estimated taxes to the IRS and your home state every quarter of the year. And even if you have taxes taken out of your paycheck, but you don’t have enough taken out......

o fix the problem, the city needs to hire more assessors and provide better technology, the consultant said. City officials said that is already being done.

City Assessor Deborah Bunn, who was hired in January, was recently authorized to hire four new commercial real estate assessors.

“That’s a good start,” said Richard R. Almy, of Almy, Gloudemans, Jacobs and Denne, a Phoenix firm hired by the city to review commercial real estate assessments.

Commercial assessments became a hot topic more than a year ago when the Norfolk Tea Party 2, a watchdog group that has pushed for lower taxes, complained of discrepancies between assessments for some downtown office buildings and the prices they fetched when sold.

Almy said his group looked at sales versus assessments and found problems as well.

“The level of assessment was 70 to 80 percent” of what it should be, he said.

His company also studied the Virginia Beach assessor’s office last year. He said that, although he found some problems at the Beach, commercial real estate assessments there were closer to market value.

“The reason for that is simple,” he said. “Virginia Beach had more people” than Norfolk working in the assessor’s office.

Brian Smith, who heads the Norfolk Tea Party 2, said the report “confirms what we’ve been saying all along, that home-owners have been carrying an unfair burden.”

Commercial real estate provides a small percentage of the estimated $203 million in real estate taxes the city will collect in the fiscal year that begins on July 1. Bunn said figures on how much commercial real estate will generate weren’t immediately available.

“It’s unfortunate we’ve lost the revenue we could have gotten the last few years from commercial real estate,” Councilman W. Randy Wright said. “The good thing is that we’re fixing the problem.”

Almy said computing assessments for commercial properties is more difficult than for residential, which is based on sales. Many commercial assessments are based on business income, and for that, the city must rely on businesses to honestly report income data.

Mayor Paul Fraim said the city has asked Attorney General Bob McDonnell whether it can require businesses to turn over federal tax return information.

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/06/norfolk-council-says-city-losing-millions-commercial-taxes

• UPI News - Max Baucus WASHINGTON, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was having an extramarital affair with an aide when he nominated her to be Montana U.S. attorney, his office said. Melodee Hanes, formerly the director of the senator's state office, was one of three names Baucus, D-Montana, forwarded......
• Tour de France - Facts and Figures [/caption] The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race that covers approximately 3,600 kilometres (2,200 mi) throughout France and bordering countries. The race lasts three weeks and attracts cyclists from around the world. The race is broken into day-long segments, called stages. Individual times to finish each stage are......
• Subic Bay to Get New Venezia Style Casino Two foreign groups have expressed interest to put up more casinos in the Subic Bay Freeport after the closure of two gaming facilities in the economic zone. Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority administrator and chief executive Armand Arreza yesterday told reporters in a briefing that a Hong Kong-based group that operates......
• Buying Properties At A 60% Discount There are still a lot of investors looking to get into real estate. Some of them are newbies looking for deals, and others are experienced and have sellers begging to take their properties off their hands. According to Bloomberg.com, 40 cents on the dollar. That's how much Morgan Stanley Real......
• Sarah Jessica Parker Perfume Sex in the City Love 3.3 Oz New in Box User Reviews Send this to a friend Sarah Jessica Parker Perfume Sex in the City Love 3.3 Oz New in Box Manufacturer: Sarah Jessica Parker Customer Rating: List Price: Varies based on product options Sale Price: $5.99 Availibility: View Product Availability Buy Now Product Description brand new in retail......