Woodford County Campaign "Lies"?

The following is from the PJS "letters" page of 4/11/06:

Thank you to voters in Woodford County District 2 for your support in the recent primary election. The only regret I have is the lies that were told about Arden Baldwin and me.
Voters were led to believe that Arden and I voted to raise overall taxes by 44 percent. That is simply not true. We voted to raise only the county portion of our taxes, which is a very small portion of our tax bill.
The reason for the increase is the county operating fund, which was soon to be in deficit due to large increases in workman's compensation and insurance costs, as well as an increase in wages for county employees. To vote against that raise would have been irresponsible.
In reality, taxes are increased or decreased by several taxing bodies over which the County Board has no control. Schools are responsible for approximately 76 percent of the tax bill. Other taxing bodies include the fire districts, townships and libraries.
- - -Ron Call,Spring Bay

Mr. Call seems to be playing a little fast and loose with his terms. We're not aware of any campaign claim that the Board was responsible for raising "overall taxes" by 44%. We believe what was stated or implied was that the levy was increased by 44%, which it was. Mr. Call knows this. Board and ex-Board members have no problem boasting that Woodford County taxes were "discounted" (lowered) this year, but if you look at your tax bill, you will see this is not true. They just decrease the levy a bit when they realized they'd over reacted the year before. We say take credit for one - take blame for the other. By the way, our own personal County portion of the property tax increased nearly 168% last year.

(When this year's bills arrive, we will post several 4-year case studies of real homeowners' property tax assessments.)

Mr. Call also implies that the increase was somehow a dedicated raise to go specifically for insurance, workers' comp, and "increase in wages". Of course, that is not the case. We don't know about your family's "operating fund", but most families when faced with increased expenses in one area, make CUTS in other areas. It's called fiscal responsibility. That is the larger point. There are those that vote for tax increases and those that don't. Mr. Call and Mr. Baldwin sided with the former.

We do agree with Mr. Call's last paragraph. That is why we need a PTELL referendum in Woodford County.