I have been reading in the Butler Eagle about the money problems Butler is experiencing. Butler has a shrinking real estate tax base because so many large buildings are being converted to nonprofit or other forms of tax-exempt buildings. The ratio of taxable real estate to non-taxable is not two or three percent, but an amazing 38 to 40 percent of all the real estate in the city.

This list includes churches, hospitals, government facilities and social services buildings.

America has had a long history of not taxing these kinds of properties, but America also has a history of all its citizens and businesses paying their fair share of the collected expenses they themselves incur.

It should be remembered that all these tax-exempt facilities don’t get a free ride from their normal maintenance requirements or from the utility companies’ services. They accept the expense of cleaning and painting, of paying for their natural gas, water and electric services.

Why then is the city expected to furnish these entities with free fire protection, police protection, highway and/or road, curb and sidewalk maintenance and snow removal when these many services cost the city so much money that Butler is close to bankruptcy?

Would it not be logical for the city council to require all tax exempt properties to pay an infrastructure protection maintenance fee to help pay for these services?

Perhaps Butler does not have the legal authority to make this type of an assessment. OK. That’s why we have state and federal representation to pass new laws that meet our current needs. Our present tax laws, enacted during the Industrial Revolution Age of the 1900s do not now represent the tax needs of a shrinking economy that is not longer fueled by expanding Industries.