Where Are Our Priorities -- Oh, There They Are, on Our Property Tax Statement!

We received our property tax statements from the Lake County treasurer last week. Here's where our money goes:

Entity	$/1000 levy	Taxable Value	Tax Assessed	Opt-Out	% of total
City/Township	0.73	125,590	$ 91.68		5.3%
County	3.63	125,590	$ 455.89		26.4%
Water Conservation	0.03	125,590	$ 3.77	2.51	0.2%
School (Owner-Occupied)	9.21	125,590	$ 1,156.68	51.47	66.9%
Sanitary District	0.17	125,590	$ 21.35		1.2%
Total	13.77		$ 1,729.37	53.98

Now this statement doesn't give a complete picture of our contribution to local civilization: count the $1000 or so a month we spend each month in Madison, and you get another $360 or so that we kick into the local sales tax kitty. You might also want to count the unitemized portion of our activity fees that I and all the other 2000-some students on the DSU campus provide to make the Community Center more affordable for everyone else in Madison (gee, maybe I should actually use that building sometime).

Note that even if we include local sales tax and other payments claimed by our local governing entities, more than half of my family's local tax burden goes to support one government function: education. We put more of our money toward education than toward police protection, road repair, snow removal, septic tank inspection, and all other local functions combined.

City folks will come up with somewhat different percentages, as they pay the city for electricity, sewer, and trash removal.