McRoy tries to blame schools for tax increase | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This article originally appeared in the Beaufort Observer.

    We'll show you why that is not true

    At their regular monthly meeting (1-9-12) the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners voted 5-2 to raise the sales tax in the county by a quarter of a cent if a referendum they propose to be put on the ballot in May passes. We will have more on that issue as we approach the May 8 vote but one facet of the debate cannot be postponed. It is Jay McRoy's ascribed reason for having to raise the sales tax.

    Listen to it in his own words.



    Now here are the facts that show that Mr. McRoy is being very deceitful, at best or flat out lying at worst. It is not true that "...the reason that the property tax was increased was because of the debt service on the school bonds." The reason they raised taxes is because they increased spending on a number of other things. They spent more than they took in for several years in a row.

    As McRoy says, the debt service on the school bonds amounts to about $2.7 million a year at this point in time, although it was less in previous years. What he does not tell you is that the county's total debt service would have declined since the school bonds were passed and those decreases reduce the need to raise all of the $2.7 million from additional tax revenue. The school bond was passed in July, 2004. Jay McRoy voted to put the issue on the ballot. Neither he, nor the other four commissioners who voted for it (Ed Booth, Robert Cayton, Al Klemm and Jerry Langley), said anything on the record about a tax increase before the people voted. Prior to the vote the then superintendent Dr. Tony Parker spoke in numerous schools and said "the bond issue will NOT result in a tax increase." The voters approved spending $33 million. The County Commissioners, with Jay McRoy voting approval each step of the way, then approved the school board spending $39,420,497 on the bond projects. That is a $6.4 million budget overrun...enough to pay the declining debt service for 3 years.

    But it gets worse.

    In 2006 the School Board sued the County Commissioners over the level of funding for schools in current expense. During the trial and the discovery leading up to it the court records showed that Jay McRoy wrote a letter to the then Superintendent Jeff Moss threatening to cut school appropriations unless Moss approved absences for McRoy's daughter's cheerleaders who went on an out-of-state trip against school policy. It was also brought out in the suit that Jerry Langley also bargained to get his wife, who was a school system employee, transferred to a different position she wanted. An SBI investigation ensued but before the investigation was complete Jay McRoy, County Manager Paul Spruill and Jerry Langley negotiated an "Interlocal Agreement" which included an indemnification provision protecting the County and commissioners from being sued for five years. In return for the promise not to sue, the Gang of Five on the Commission voted to give the schools an additional nearly one million a year in county appropriations...nearly half of the debt service from the bonds each year.

    But it gets worse.

    Since the bonds were passed in 2004 the County, led by McRoy as chairman for much of the time, spent over $8 million on two ill-fated industrial parks and buildings, one of which has never been used since it was constructed. That is $8 million that could have been spent on schools, without having to borrow the money by selling bonds. That would have reduced the debt service by at least $700,000 a year.

    But it gets worse.

    During the spring of 2010, Hood Richardson and Stan Deatherage offered a budget plan that would have reduced the tax rate by five cents. McRoy made the motion to raise taxes three cents.

    Thus, it is clear that raising either the property tax rate or the sales tax rate was not caused by the school bonds as McRoy says. Had he and one of the other four voted not to spend the $8 million on economic development, had the same group not voted to bail him and Jerry Langley out on the Chickengate Agreement, and had the same group not allowed the $6.4 million over-run on the school bond projects and had the same group accepted the Richardson/Deatherage plan for the 2011 budget not only would a tax increase not be necessary, but they could be making a substantial reduction in taxes....something sorely need in these tight economic times.

    The Observer advised McRoy that we were going to publish this information and invited him to submit a rebuttal. After waiting over a week, he failed to do so. The offer still stands.

    Commentary

    We, like most of the public, are simply fed up with politicians who lie to us. We are charging Mr. McRoy with being dishonest simply because we believe he knew that what he said at the January meeting was not true but he said it anyway. It is simply not a truthful statement to say that the sales tax must be raised because of the school bonds. And he knows that. But if he does not know that then it is still atrocious that he would not know his facts any better than that.

    The reason they are raising taxes is simply because they have spent way more money than they have taken in the last few years. Rather than cut spending they dipped into the reserves, until that money ran out. Now they are raising taxes. They are in effect making the taxpayers of Beaufort County bail out these commissioners. We have, in fact, had enough bailouts of bad decisions disingenuous politicians have made. The truth is that if they had cut wasteful spending they would not need to be raising taxes. That is the truth and the fact that McRoy would not defend his position only confirms in our mind that he knows what he said was not true, and he therefore cannot defend it.