We hope everyone is digging out of the snow!
We are behind on several posts and issues that we need to talk about as a community. Before we go into CDB grants etc. we would like to present this. Some additional information we can use to determine how we compare as a community to others around us.
2 weeks ago at the commissioners meeting they approved the 766K HVAC. One of the reasons they gave seemed pretty logical as we are a rural county so costs are just more. Makes sense, but how much more? Could we be doing better? We started to do some investigating of those rural costs by comparing other counties around us. We are finding some very interesting and disturbing numbers.
To do our due diligence on this issue we spent several days comparing the cost of living, incomes, average home prices, media property values, etc, with several counties around us. One website from the Nebraska Government gives a terrible forecast for us thru 2027. We need to change that. More on that and just how we can change that coming soon.
In the map above we show the property taxes that you would pay on a $150,000 home in each area. As you can see we are pretty high. Just move to Alliance, Bridgeport, or even Chappell and you can expect to pay a lot less.
Then, if you took a look at the median home price for each area we get even worse. We become the highest-priced area to live for hundreds of miles in all directions. Sheridan County for example drops to $1,192 while Cheyenne drops to $1,715. Duell County drops to $1,035
It is obvious others around us are doing better. So logically, we can do better. Our community can do anything if we come together, discuss the issues, study what others are doing and then apply some changes. We desperately need to control our budget and spending. We should have taken more time to investigate some of the larger expenditures. Due diligence. It is way out of line with the other counties around us. We will explore this in more detail in the coming weeks as Eric has promised to point out several areas of our current budget where we can make some savings.
Why is Peetz growing? You can see. A $150K home in Sidney pays on average $2,730 compared to the same home in Peetz which pays $945.
I will give a link to a scary economic forecast if you start to mouse around. We can change it, but we need to do our due diligence. You will see if you mouse around that page that Lincoln will be growing in the next 4 years while Sidney loses just a little. Sidney drops when compared to the national average while Lincoln holds. More issues to look at.
All this can change. Kimball is changing. I will put a link to their new website. It also connects to their new county website. You can easily see all the economic development opportunities there. They won the new missile contract over us. They are changing and doing new things. Things are starting here in our county, we need to support those changes and start even more. Get passed “this is the way it has always been done” and move forward.
Here is a real problem for us. Our average wages here are projected to only increase 6% over the next 4 years. The national average will be 12%. We will lose more and more skilled labor if we don’t turn some of this around. It can be done though! We start by identifying issues, see what others are doing then go fix those issues.
I will also put a link to a new, very interesting article from the Platte Institute on changes we need to do to make our areas more attractive. Excellent common sense article.
https://www.tax-rates.org/…/cheyenne_county_property_tax
Very interesting website from State.
https://app.locationone.com/…/59ed7fc5994c2e62b62c09ac…
Interesting article from Platte Institute on what we need to change
https://platteinstitute.org/4-ways-to-make-nebraska…/
https://kimballne.org/economic-development/