The Charlotte Observer
Editorial: Charlotte does not have ‘highest tax rate'
Democratic chairman's slam against McCrory is wrong
Thursday, July 3, 2008

“Pat McCrory is trying to have it both ways,” said Jerry Meek, a Fayetteville lawyer who chairs the N.C. Democratic Party. “His city has had the highest tax rate in the state for seven years running and now McCrory wants to be a fiscal conservative. That's like drinking Slimfast and eating ribs.”

Spiffy quote. Wrong information.

Here are the facts.

Mr. Meek quotes a John Locke Foundation study that did say, “Charlotte continues to top the list of cities with the highest local government costs in North Carolina, according to a new report from the Raleigh-based Center for Local Innovation.”

But Mr. Meek apparently failed to look beyond the quote. The report reaches that conclusion by combining city and county taxes. Mecklenburg County's tax rate is relatively high, for reasons we'll address in a minute. Charlotte's isn't.

The property tax is the main revenue source for N.C. cities. In 2007-08, Charlotte's property tax rate was .4586 cent per $100 property valuation. That's lower than the rate in, for instance, Mr. Meek's Fayetteville (.5300). It's also lower than the rates in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham, Greenville, Salisbury, Hickory, Chapel Hill and Rockingham, to cite a few.

Charlotte raised its property tax rate only once in the past decade. Mayor McCrory vetoed the increase, but City Council's Democrats overrode his veto.

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