You may recently have paid your local property taxes.
Some privileged people, however, didn’t.
In fact, the three wealthiest guys around here didn’t.
Jimmy “Cheats” Haslam doesn’t have to pay a penny of taxes on the Browns stadium.
It’s worth $276-million. (For enterprising reporters here’s the parcel number 101-02-014).
Dan “Thuggish” Gilbert doesn’t have to pay a penny of taxes on Quicken Arena.
It’s worth $113-million. (For reporters here’s the parcel number 101-28-040).
Dan “Cables” Dolan doesn’t have to pay a penny of taxes on Progressive Field.
It’s worth $176-million. (For enterprising reporters here’s the parcel number 101-33-002).
That totals $565 MILLION in property value.
Year after year as normal property owners pay their taxes, the scofflaws don’t pay a damned penny.
Screw the city, they say. More importantly, screw the schools.
They dodge paying anything to the Cleveland schools since all these facilities are located within the City of Cleveland.
What do these figures mean? What do they mean especially to the Cleveland school system? What do they mean to Cleveland children?
And why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?
What would the tax collection be if all three sports facilities paid their fair taxes?
If they paid the taxes (on 35 percent of the above assessed values) here is what the bill should be as of the latest Count recorded values:
The $276-million Browns stadium – with a tax rate of 101. per 1,000 of value (rounded down) – would pay an annual tax of $9.6 million per year. The Cleveland schools lose $5.76 million of that amount each year.
The $176-million Progressive field would pay taxes of $6.2 million a year and the Cleveland schools would get $3.72 million of that annually.
The $113 million Quicken Arena would pay taxes of $3.9 million a year and the Cleveland schools lose $2.4 million of that sum annually.
So the three sports facilities – all tax exempted – are valued totally at $565-million and assessed for tax purposes at $197-million (35 percent of appraised value).
The financially struggling Cleveland schools (since all three facilities are in Cleveland and tax free) lose EVERY YEAR almost $12 million in tax revenue.
Add that up year after year and the taxes lost become tens of millions of dollars.
No wonder Michael Powell, a New York Times sports reporter, wrote a piece recently that was headlined, “Depleting Cleveland, Despite Billions.” It also said, “Franchise owners dip into the public’s purse for facility upkeep, straining a city.”
And he didn’t even talk about the free tax scheme that involves tens of millions more.
“This straitened city has already pumped $800 million into its sports stadiums,” Powell wrote. He added that in the next 20 years taxpayers will provide $262-million more for improvements.
I think he’s going to prove low on those figures.
I know he’s going to prove low. Because they always want more and our so-called leaders never say “NO!”