Nick Jimenez

Sunday, May 14, 2000

Tax burden shifts as city falls behind

As a city we haven't lacked for controversy. But just as Corpus Christi has plenty of wind, humidity, and now rats at Cole Park, we never seem to run out of controversies.
   We have a penchant for getting ourselves wound around our own axle.
   The imbroglio at the Corpus Christi Independent School District has been holding center stage for months. Perhaps the school board election will calm the waters, but community history doesn't boost my hopes.
   Controversy and debate would have a purpose if they centered on the real problems of the city, but they so often don't. We wind up marching and protesting against straw men.
   If someone wants a problem he can march against, he can target this: the stagnant economic condition of the city. Now here is a problem that affects every family in Corpus Christi and it is slowly eating away at our way of life, and will affect the future of our kids.
   The very real way that the lack of growth in industry and jobs is affecting the city was brought home to me recently by Robert N. Barnes, the former county judge. Barnes, now retired, still spends much of his time the same way he spent his time in office: poring over tax and valuation figures.
   Barnes spent two terms on the Nueces County Appraisal District board. Before he stepped down last year, he made a study, for his own purposes, of valuations and their growth over the last decade.
   The bottom line of his study is this: The tax burden in Nueces County is steadily shifting to single family homes simply because business and industry is not growing. Over the last five years, according to Barnes, 90 percent of the increase in property value in Nueces County has been in single family residences.
   Ronnie Canales, county tax collector, says the pattern has consequences for homeowners.
   "People have not realized that so long as there's no growth, your value is going to go up, meaning your taxes are going to go up so that the diversity in making payments of taxes is not going to be shared by large industries," he said. "The person who is making your house payment is paying most of your taxes."
   That means you and I are taking up the load. That means the young families who have fewer property exemptions are taking the load. And in Corpus Christi young families means mostly Hispanics.
   "If you don't pass any bond elections," Canales said, ''no jobs are being created, no industries coming in here, who does that leave to carry the burden? The homeowner."
   Barnes' figures note that this stagnant growth has been going on for much of the past decade. The effect on Corpus Christi versus other Texas cities has been dramatic. While Austin, McAllen and Harlingen have been booming, we've been barely holding our head above water. In 1960, Barnes notes, Travis County (Austin) was smaller than Nueces County. In 1970, Hidalgo County (McAllen) was smaller than Nueces County. And in 1990, Cameron County (Brownsville-Harlingen) was smaller than Nueces County. All three counties are larger now.
   The effects of this stagnant growth will play out in other ways. Next year, the Legislature will take up redistricting. If other cities are growing and we're standing still, that means our political power will be affected. Fewer people means less representation in Congress and the Legislature. Somebody else will get to call the shots.
   Why have we allowed our city to fall behind? Why have we allowed our families to pick up more of the tax burden? Why have we allowed those with a small vision to determine what kind of a city we will have?
   It's hard to march for economic growth. Getting the city moving means unity and working together. On the other hand, maybe we just like fighting better.
  

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