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Community Corner

Tax Committee Chair Introduced to the Workings of Cities by Babar

What began with a children's story has become a lifelong fascination for Michael Rancer.

Name: Michael Rancer

Age: 61

Occupation: Municipal Tax Review Committee chairman, retired public financier

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Taxes are famously hard to feel good about. Why does Piedmont have the municipal services property tax?

The City of Piedmont has virtually no commercial property, so it collects no sales tax and very little business property tax. As a result, Piedmont has to rely almost entirely on [residential] property tax for its local city government. The problem is that basic property tax allocated to fund the city is no longer enough to meet the city’s needs for the kinds of programs residents expect.

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Going back into the '90s, the city has levied a parcel tax on all property. Taxes are set by election every four years, and require a two-thirds majority to enact. The current tax in place goes through June 30, 2013. So the city council establishes a committee every four years to review and make recommendations, and to put a measure on ballot. 

How did you come to be chair of the Municipal Tax Review Committee?

In the past, this committee had seven members. This year we have nine members. At the third meeting, Mark Bichsel, the City of Piedmont  finance director, said the committee needed a chair. I was nominated and elected. ...

Many applied to be on [the committee].There’s more interest this year than in previous years, probably because of the current economy and general controversy everywhere over government budgets, spending and taxes.

Also, in Piedmont, recent decisions by the city council and administration cost the city a lot of money. The cost the city $2 million. The will cost the city $380,000 in the coming year. Also, the upcoming decision to build the could cost the city a lot of money to operate.

Analyzing Piedmont's budget and tax needs must be a time-consuming project. 

The Piedmont budget is one of the smallest budgets I’ve ever dealt with. It’s real easy to get your arms around this one.

What size budget are you accustomed to working with?

For the past 30 years, I’ve been dealing with public sector budgets for counties, cities and the University of California. I retired seven months ago from UC, where I had been the Budget Director for the last two and a half years for the Office of the President. Before that, I spent 12 years on the Berkeley campus as the chief administrative officer for the library system on campus.

Why did you get into this line of work?

It was the '60s, and we all wanted to make the world a better place. Planning appeared to be a way. Cities were struggling in the '60s.

I left Cal in ‘74 with a Masters in City Planning. It took me a couple of years to figure out that planning isn’t where decisions are made—decisions are made when budgets are put together. To have the opportunity to make a contribution to government, you need to understand budgets. So I went back and got an MPA in public administration.

I originally began thinking about how cities work when I was a youngster growing up in North Carolina. My parents read a particular Babar the Elephant story where he builds a city for the elephants. I probably didn’t see that book again for 30 years before I read it to my daughter. I remember being intrigued at age 4 by this story. Subconsciously it stayed with me.

How long have you lived in Piedmont?

We moved here 15 years ago when my daughter was starting middle school and my son was starting first grade. David passed away 10 years ago, and Emily is working in marketing and business strategies for the sustainable food industry. My wife Susan is a music therapist and works with autistic children.

What’s your view of government’s ability to function effectively these days?

For good or bad, industries, or things that will change society are coming out of the private sector. Government is ossified right now, and not innovative at any level. It is racing to keep up, and in many cases not doing so well. I see governments trying to give old answers to new problems and I don’t think it’s working.

My impression is that public agencies are dominated by people of my generation and I think the steam has gone out of that generation. Mostly, people trying to hold on to what they’ve got.

I try not to be that way. It’s difficult being in your 60s trying to keep up with a rapidly changing world. If you don’t, you become irrelevant, and I’m not ready to be irrelevant just yet.

 

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the expiration date of the current municipal services tax authorization. The descriptions of at which meeting Rancer was elected tax committee chair, Susan Rancer's occupation, and the grade the Rancer's son was in when they moved to Piedmont have been updated.

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