For those who think Sioux Falls is sheltered from the recession, check out these numbers (Bread for the World)
• SD food stamp enrollment saw an incredible one-year increase from Sept.’08 to Sept.’09: 34% !!
Food stamps traditionally go up and down with the economy. But no one envisioned such a huge one-year increase.
(The Food Stamp program is now called SNAP.)
Find the data for your county here:
http://dss.sd.gov/foodstamps/data/foodstampdatapast/index.asp
Minnehaha County residents will be completely shocked by their 48% increase.
Let your local Social Services workers know you appreciate them. They are working hard.
One more note: Even if you include up to 4,000 households using commodities rather than food stamps (option available on reservations), there are still thousands of eligible low-income households NOT signed up for food stamps, easily 15,000 to 20,000 or more. The state should campaign for them to sign up. (It’s all federal funds.)
• Food tax refunds’ dismal reach: less than 1% of SD’s low-income population.
Only 630 households in the whole state are receiving the quarterly food tax refunds. Make sure your local media report this.
Why is it important?
• People pay a lot of money for the tax. Every year the money families pay in food tax would cover meals for 3 weeks.
• There is a movement afoot to raise sales tax for new city projects, even tho’ cities have other ways to raise funds. In an attempt to make this palatable, the draft of the state legislation says cities may refund the new tax to their low-income residents. So far, there is no effective way to do refunds. Such refund programs are inherently ineffective. People need to know, so they don’t think this option would solve the problem of a higher sales tax, and the resulting higher the cost of living.
This can’t be true. Our trusted city dictators who never lie contend we are still a healthy economy. Incidently, Omaha Steaks has a ‘Merriment’ package for $59 (half price) with free shipping. There’s filets, chicken, pork, dessert and 4 free bonus steaks. It would be $100+ here and not the quality. The special added bonus, NO SALES TAX for the city to shamefully waste. I’ve started compiling deals such as this and will soon start posting them on stophomerulesiouxfalls.com. I also want to teach people how to contest their property taxes.
PG. Thanks, look forward to it. There ought to be a substantial data base now on the reduced prices for real estate sales that allow all to contest and reduce their rose-pedal and palm frond assessments. Fair market value is not in the eye of the assessor – it’s in the eye and wallet of the buyer. (Note the Pontiac stadium, sold at a 99% discount to its 35 year old construction price.)
With a 48% increase in food stamp use, and one in nine South Dakota homes being a mobile home – isn’t this just a great place to raise kids?!
DL: great reporting. It’s long past time when someone (a frustrated journalist, perhaps) started a SD on line, non-profit newspaper like Minn Post. http://www.minnpost.com/
The Argus & Journal would be dead within six months.
Property taxes are a joke. After I took out a community development loan to do repairs to my house, I was reassessed, my taxes almost doubled.
South Dakota is the land of nickel and dime increases that add up, instead of just simplifying it with an income tax.
Whoa, no income tax, corporate tax, or tax on services (for out of state clients, mine). That’s why I live here. It’s what gives me a 15% advantage over my competition. I’d move to a hub city with transportation, infrastructure, and democracy. You’d be surprised how many of us are here. Then there’s the RV’ers. They keep a SD address for the taxes. There’s no reason things can’t work with present structure. It’s worked well for many years. Like citizens, government must cut back in lean times. City government could readily lay off 20% of it’s personnel and cut benefits. More taxes incites a population decline and less revenue. One more penny sales tax is enough for out of state catalog sales transition. Where are the retailers. Surely, they can lobby against this.
I have real estate and land law background. I’ve been working on a seminar to be deployed in California and depressed states. I want to test it here. Sioux Falls is proven to be the best test market for new products. There’s what’s called a ‘Short Sale’. It’s the best way you can entice mortgagors to lower your base and get your tax assessment down. Basically, you buy a foreclosed home near yours and renovate it. For funding, you max out with a second mortgage on your present home. You move in to the new home and offer the lender much less to pay off your present home. If he takes it, you buy and have 2 sales in your neighborhood as cases to get property taxes lowered. If he doesn’t, you walk away. You have a nice new home and shouldn’t have to worry about credit issues for some time. You also have the price you bought your new home for as tax base. If a seminar gets 100 or so of these going, government has a real problem and the 100 could represent a class to prevent overcollection until the matter is decided years later.
PG: more empirical evidence the assessors are out of control. Property is worth what someone will pay – nothing more.
Highly desirable bare commercial property in Pigeon Forge was assessed at over $2 million – but it on Saturday it sold for less than half of assessed value.
http://olive.knoxnews.com/Olive/ODE/Knoxville/LandingPage/LandingPage.aspx?href=S05TLzIwMDkvMTEvMjI.&pageno=MTc.&entity=QXIwMTcwMg..&view=ZW50aXR5
The assessments have to come down, way down. Sharpen your budget knives, county commissioners.
PG – Find a rancher who will sell you half a steer. Better meat, cheaper meat, and you’re helping the local economy. Omaha Steaks are a ripoff.
Also, and I can’t speak for everyone, we’re having our best year ever at my business. Hell, even the Michigan office is having a pretty good year this year. There is still a lot of economic activity in this town. Unfortunately, a lot of the lower-paying production and phone monkey jobs are taking a hit. I’m just thankful those peoples’ jobs haven’t all been outsourced to India.
This is what happens when you build a city’s economy on expendable $8-10/hr jobs.
There are people in need, that’s for sure. There’s a website, sdbridgetobenefits.org that enables a person (or someone helping another) to go online anonymously and to find out what benefit programs (in addition to Food Stamps/SNAP) that a person/family might be eligible for as well as the necessary forms, information, and location of the office to pursue such application.
420 people and children at the Banquet Friday night. That is a lot of people in perfect Sioux Falls.