Jackson Jambalaya

Payroll, Payroll, Payroll. To make a logical conclusion, one would have to assess expenses, but on the face, you can start with payroll.

From what little I know about Jackson, because I live in Madison, raising Payroll taxes would have very little effect on income If there is a way to tax Govt subsidies, this may be an income producer.

Only way to cut property taxes now is to de-annex parts of the City. Short of that not one of the candidates in the forum you are featuring will see another property tax cut in Jackson during the remainder of their physical lifetimes.

8:54
Go eat some candy already, it's halloween.
Quit plotting for money. Take a break.
Geez.

And since its halloween, it's really sad that I'm honestly more concerned about what could be in the landfill besides trash.

We're off topic here. The question was "what expenses could be cut?" He didn't ask how to cut revenue/taxes. Of course according to congress, the president, and the minions in Washington, we have no inflation, so I see no reason for any tax increases.

I don't know. I don't live in jackson and apparently 8:54 doesn't either, therefor we have no idea what taxes you guys face on a daily basis and have no voice in the matter.

@ 8:54
Taxing government subsidies, which not ironically, come from taxes is a ridiculous notion. Tax the taxes ehh? Riiiight. That's crazier than the minions in Washington.

What I do know is that it's kind of hard to cut taxes when you hardly have a tax base. Those car tags ARE RIDICULOUS.
Your house prices are ridiculous. ( no one wants to live there that dam* bad)
Your crime is ridiculous because of blatant corruption.
The anti white sentiment is ridiculous.
The elitist sentiment is ridiculous with in the ward 1 community.
( I hate to tell you guys, but the richest of your rich are like pimples on wallstreet)
Get back to the idea of having a home and relative safety with decent schools and you might be able to revive jackson as a whole. If not, tough smackers.
The whole city needs to be on that same page black or white or rainbow.
Ergo its up to you and you have a whole city council that, in a nutshell, hates you.
Race relations in the suburbs are ten times better.
I wonder why that is? Our schools are better.
Everything is better out here juxtaposed to the issues you face.
We turn on the 5 o'clock news and watch in horror everyday untill we're numb to it all and are scared to even come there. We gladly shop at Walmart/ Kroger while you rave about whole foods.

I think the 'payroll suggestion' was a recommendation to cut the number of people on the payroll, thereby cutting expenses.....not RAISE payroll taxes. The city council has no authority to raise payroll taxes. Try to keep up here.

Scrap the entire public works department and outsource the whole thing. Every time there is a break in the water main, I always see about 10 people standing around "working" on fixing it. And a lot of times, like what happened with the break on Capitol St, they end up having to outsource the job anyway.

8:54am lives in Madison, but her reading comprehension is clearly on par with JPS grads. :)

8:54 writes very poorly and incomprehensibly; that is true.

But I think the point he/she was trying to make is that there are too few people earning an income in Jackson ("payroll"), so an alternative is to tax EBT benefits, since that seems to be the bulk of the money coming into Jackson.

A "payroll" tax, on the other hand, is certainly viable despite what several people here have stated. NYC has a city income tax. Baltimore has a 50% surtax on the state income tax for city residents. The Philadelphia "city wage tax" is a tax on income earned in the city regardless of home residence. Residents of NJ who work in Philadelphia get a NJ state income tax credit (not a deduction) on the NJ state income tax for every dollar paid to Philadelphia.

Various cities with crummy tax bases surrounded by booming suburbs have proposed "commuter taxes" to try to tax those who earn their income in a city but live outside it. Of course this just encourages companies to move their operations out of the city, closer to where their employees live.

9:52; Please name 'various cities' that have passed 'commuter taxes'.

And, are you really serious about using New York, Baltimore and Philly as examples of how to make a city viable through creative financing?

I'm not sure what point 9:52 was trying to make. What I do know is that "all" government employees make up a substantial amount of expense for the tax payer, but really add nothing to the economy/bottom line except spending their incomes. A large portion of the tax revenue/wmployment is spent supporting the criminal element, that is law enforcement, jail/prison security, and the like. All of this adds nothing to productivity, but is a necessary evil so to speak. It seems most gubmint agencies are top heavy, i.e., management/administrative, etc. in number of jobs and wages. Many of these people could not hold/qualify for real/competitive jobs. If they aren't qualified and productive, they should be eliminated.

9:52 here. 1:14 has a reading comprehension problem I can't fix. I said "proposed" a commuter tax. That is NOT the same thing as saying any entity "passed" such a tax. It's a bad idea and hasn't been passed anywhere that I know of.

Also, Jackson is larger in land mass than NYC. Are the attractions of life in Jackson enough to attract 15,000,000 to live here? How many World Series, Super Bowls, Stanley Cups and NBA championships have gone to Jackson's hometown teams?

9:10 I wasn't talking about "government employees" at all. I'm talking about ANYONE who earns a paycheck and pays income taxes (mainly private sector workers). Welfare, EBT, etc are all expenses paid from those taxes collected from those of us who work. The state capitol (sp?) has the same problems as 49 other state capitols when it comes to non-taxable land, etc.

The state capitol (sp?) has the same problems as 49 other state capitols when it comes to non-taxable land, etc.

[AND YET] for 2+ years running one of the "supposed" protectors of Jackson's interests -- the always babbling Downtown Jackson Partners led by the mercurial Prophet -- prodded their Senate lackey David Blount to push legislation that would have had the state dramatically overpay for the Landmark building AND taken the building off Jackson's tax rolls.

All in order to force more state workers downtown to prop up the flagging, er, flailing, er failing DJP downtown retail strategy. The Prophet needed warm bodies to stroll up and down his business killing, but two-wayed, Capitol Street and if adding another tax exempt property downtown achieved that latest wet dream well then, by golly, take the Landmark off the rolls and let's pray to GOD that Jackson can break even a decade from now from the sales taxes collected.

No mention, of course, was made by DJP during that time to the inherent incremental costs for infrastructure support that would be incurred by Jackson. DJP, the same outfit, mind you, who only years before sponsored yet another "study" of tax exempt properties downtown in order to give heft to Jackson's cries to the Legislature for in lieu of payments from the state to compensate for same.

Nope, Jackson's problems are not exactly the same as the 49 other Capital Cities. Those other cities don't have our Prophet.

10:14 that all sounds good. But the money is in the large populace areas. You won't see a major sporting event in Ms. or other major changes, because there are not enough people interested, and if the capital/money was available they wouldn't invest it here, because there would be no return. Once you leave the major population areas of Ms. like Jackson, the
Coast, and the Memphis area, we are spread to thin, but still have to support these areas, e.g., transportation routes, welfare, etc. The political climate greatly effects us, and that's not going to change without population changes, whether it's democrats or republicans controlling the state. It stinks, but that's life in Ms.