Document text
0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Fire took home from mom and her boys ... New bridge would connect east, west Nevada Street in Ashland ... Developer eyes Oregon Boy Scouts property on coast for golf course ... Fire took home from mom and her boys ... New bridge would connect east, west Nevada Street in Ashland ... Developer eyes Oregon Boy Scouts property on coast for golf course ... OTHER VIEWS Other Views: A meeting at Oregon's urban-rural divide Comment MailTribune.com Writer Posted Oct. 31, 2015 at 12:01 AM Posted Oct. 31, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Social News Excerpted from The Oregonian What does Multnomah County have in common with Josephine County, aside from the same state flag? One answer can be found in a report presented to Multnomah County's commissioners last week. It's a review of so-called tax expenditures, and it also reinforces how little Oregon's most urban county has in common with many of its most rural. For these reasons, and because the state's urban-rural divide will be a topic of conversation at a county commission meeting next month, the report deserves a few words. Produced by the county auditor's office, it documents the millions of dollars in taxes the county does not collect every year as a result of various exemptions ... which in tax year 2014 deprived the county and library district of about $80 million. ... At the very top, accounting for about $11 million in foregone revenue, is the federal government. Uncle Sam's property tax exemption is well known in counties like Josephine, where the federal government owns about half the land area. To mitigate the sting, the federal government does send payments in lieu of taxes, which amounted to about $16 million for the entire state in 2015, according to the Association of Oregon Counties. But here's where urban and rural counties begin to diverge. The federal government's properties in Multnomah County differ in important ways from its holdings in the state's heavily timbered, rural counties. Consider the top five federal properties in Multnomah, in descending order of foregone revenue: the Bonneville Dam and associated facilities; the Veterans Administration hospital; the federal offices at 2nd and Salmon in downtown Portland; the federal buildings by the Lloyd Center; and the federal courthouse downtown. Rural counties aren't completely devoid of federal facilities, of course. But a crucial difference between the federal offices clustered in Portland and the vast expanses of federal forests that dominate many rural counties is that the former function as employment and service centers. They're populated by people who make good money (and pay taxes on it) and they contribute to the region's economic vitality despite their property tax exemption. Federal forests in rural counties were once engines of economic vitality, too, but logging has been virtually idled by environmental legislation and litigation. Congress has provided money to soften the blow, but funding levels are steadily decreasing and not intended to be permanent in any case. For Multnomah County to approximate the economic shock from which the state's timber counties have yet to recover, Portland would need a whole lot more federal buildings; they would sit idle, unstaffed and unproductive; and every once in a while they'd burn, threatening buildings around them and bathing tourists with smoke and ash. That isn't to suggest that all environmental regulation and litigation should be looked upon with suspicion or, for that matter, that residents of rural counties are themselves blameless for local dysfunction. Property tax rates in some of the counties hit most heavily by the collapse of the timber industry are, for historic reasons, shockingly low ... . But so, in a very good way, is a small but meaningful gesture made by Multnomah County Commissioner Judy Shiprack, who has invited Josephine County Commissioner Simon Hare and Columbia County Commissioner Tony Hyde to talk to her and her colleagues about the timber economy and the concerns of rural counties. ... One meeting among county commissioners isn't going to close the state's urban-rural divide and it isn't suddenly going to boost timber harvests on federal land. But listening matters. Josephine County and Multnomah County are part of the same state, and, as Josephine Commissioner Hare points out, "we have a lot at stake here." MailTribune.com Writer Posted Oct. 31, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... Business Name address Location, ST | website.com Find Southern Oregon Attractions Bars Restaurants Beauty Salons Entertainment Doctors Medical Specialists Contractors Education Lawn Services Lawyers Shopping Travel Tanning Used Cars Wedding Services ▼ Add your business here + Events Calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Propel Marketing Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Mobile Site Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Your privacy is important, read our privacy policy. © Copyright 2015 Local Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Local Media Group Publications Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted. MailTribune.com | P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501