Johnston County voters overwhelmingly approved a $177 million school bond referendum for Johnston County Public Schools.
The referendum passed Tuesday with 65 percent support, in unofficial returns. 45,996 people voted in favor of the referendum, while 25,012 voted against.
The 2022 bond referendum will fund construction of a new high school, new elementary school, two additions, and specific projects at schools in all of feeder patterns.
Here comes the tax hike.
“Why did our property taxes go up?” -Joco YES voters dumbfounded as to why they did this to themselves, but dense enough not to put two and two together because a year went by and they completely forgot about voting YES for this. Come on people, think a little!
BONDS = TAX HIke, Duh!
My concern is all these Lottery Tickets sold is supposed to go to our children education. A lot of the teachers have to take money out of there pockets to make sure there students has what they need…
Told you this would pass, they always do. Not only will this raise future taxes, but it’s also inflationary. Spending over $1600 for every wage earner in the county will absolutely make prices go up.
I thought all the new housing being built would have raised the tax revenue? Oh that’s right, growth only causes taxes to go up because of the services the new homes need. Road, school, fire services, police, water, sewer, electric…… growth is a bad thing when it comes to housing
I saw a lot of new housing being started early in the year, but most progress seems to have stopped in the last couple of months. Contractors filing bankruptcy and disappearing with the money perhaps? Just a guess. What are they going to do if the housing market dries up and these hordes of new home buyers don’t materialize?
The scam here with property taxes of course, is that they don’t raise the percent rates and use that to claim that they’re not raising taxes. When they want more money they start incrementing the property values. I want you all to remember this in a year or two when the palaces are being constructed next to the new, expensive, empty neighborhoods, late and over budget, and your property’s assessed value is going up while its market value goes down. We need another bond! And more and more tax money goes to the bond holders.
Think property taxes don’t affect you if you rent? That’s wrong, too. When your landlord’s taxes go up, he raises the rent. On assistance? Inflation always raises prices faster than the assistance gets increased. Price controls? Then nothing will be available. This is the way it always goes.
Our schools are overcrowded as is, if you think hamstringing the school system and creating unsafe conditions for our staff and students is going to prevent developers from building neighborhoods and townhomes you’re not living in reality. I can’t stand the rapid development as much as anyone else, but screwing our kids and teachers isn’t going to stop that.
Actually only certain schools are crowded, in certain areas. Drawing new attendance boundaries would help tremendously. With Neuse charter, Thales, American leadership academy, Johnston charter public schools are going to be less and less crowded.
Oh yeah everyone voted to raise taxes on a bloated bond that isn’t even going to fix the problem of overcrowding. But I wouldn’t expect anything less from the people who also voted for an indicted pedophile!
Johnston County has passed numerous school bonds and NEVER raised taxes as a result!!
The tax rate is still the same since another school bond was passed in 2018, why is everyone crying a bond = tax increase? The county has plenty of money, there won’t be an increase
Taxes on my house in 2018 were $1203. In 2021 on the same house they were $1301. They wouldn’t do what, again? And this one is well over twice the amount.
I’m amazed at the number of folks that think bonds = higher taxes. Not how it works. Bonds are an alternative to raising taxes. Bonds are approved and sold to the American public thus raising the funds needed without raising taxes. Pure and simple.
Your county property taxes went up like all of ours because a couple of years ago, our leaders realized that property assessments were only done every … I think 8 years. With that plan, every homeowner had a dramatic increase in their taxes. They voted to change the assessment to a more frequent rate thus keeping any increases minimal. Makes sense.
You make bonds sound like a charitable contribution. That’s not true. The bonds have to be paid at maturity. Where does that money come from? The “public” you refer to are mostly banks and big investors. They don’t give away money. Bond=borrowing.
Oh, and by the way, deciding to re-assess more often IS a tax increase. Do the math yourself. Just to make it easy, suppose a property is worth 100K in 2000 and the rate is 1% and does not change. Then in 2008 it is worth 180K. If it is only reassessed once for 2008, the total tax for 9 years would be $9800. If you increase it $20K every 2 years, the total is $12200. You think they did you a favor?
@Julie for JoCo, if the county has so much money why do we need bonds? Every time the county or a town in the county says growth is good for tax revenue, taxes go up because the new revenue does not cover the services needed for the new growth.
Just remember that living here is a choice. If you can find a better place then move.
It is ridiculous that when you don’t support public school because you choose to put your children in private schools you still have to pay taxes toward a corrupt school system
There are many ways to increase revenue from taxes without actually raising the tax rate. 1: increase utility fees and rates, another increase valuation of homes, another increase usage fees. Johnston county is outgrowing it’s ability to provide for its citizens. Roads, traffic, crime, schools, fire, utilities, are accidents are all costs in the long run. Nothing and I mean nothing improves with the growth, Johnston county is hell bent on doing trying to sound like growth is so great for community when in actuality it destroys community.
An increase in fees by a county or town is still a tax, it’s just called something else.
That’s my point…..duh. Revaluation in 2025 told you so.
If infighting exists over 8 million in the school board reports, just think what 177 million will do. Get the popcorn and extra large soda….. Here we go….
Bonds are a tax increase. They exist to “mask” a tax increase. Initially, The “bond” was touted as a temporary tax increase for particular projects and at the conclusion of the bond term. Taxes would be return to the former base. Im’ almost 64, I have never seen a “lifting” of the bond increases at the end of the bond. The reality is once that increase tax is in place the taxpayer is use to the increase remains. The increase remains under a new name, property value increase, etc. We homeschooled, then did private schools. Our family never “benefited” from the heavy tax tag. There was a 10% decrease in student enrollment statewide, but a 4.9% increase in administrative costs. Slash the top-heavy administrative positions. Homeschoolers receive zero tax benefits! ( In WI, for example, every homeschooled child has available $1200/child available) We need less administration, better use use of existing funds and most importantly better educating of our students in the basics. School systems are not good stewards of finances; they don’t deserve more money until they demonstrate they teach children effectively. Teaching students and not teaching for tests.
I have a profound tremor which is difficult to control when making comments. I apologize for the mistakes…
I hate property taxes but I also hate putting students in trailers for classrooms. Our house is valued in the low $400’s and our taxes are about $2100. Where I came from, a suburb of the murder capital of the country, a comparable house would be taxed at over $8000. I’m ok with voting this one time and only this one time. We’re shall see what happens.
We’re already past one time. The schools had trailers 4 years ago when the last bond was passed. They’re still there.They are very effective at getting money, so they’re not going anywhere. The money gets spent on new, wealthy-looking schools (and more importantly, more staff) in more valuable new real estate areas.
Part of the last bond was spent on a luxurious new building at JCC with tons of wasted space for artistic value and only 6 classrooms and a dozen tiny offices in it. The new library is designed the same wasteful/wealthy way, with more than 1/3 of its volume wasted as cavernous empty space that costs ongoing money to heat and cool. I believe the new building was supposed to be done almost 2 years ago, but it naturally isn’t and unplanned money is still going into it.