It will be up to West Salem taxpayers, or at least those who turn out for the November election, whether the village should increase its tax base for a one-time bail out of the West Salem Fire Protection District.

On Tuesday, the village board approved a referendum that would permanently increase the village tax levy by 12 percent.

If voters approve, the referendum would allow the village to hike its levy by $116,343 to a resulting base levy of $1,085,870 for 2008.

The vote to approve placing the referendum on the fall ballot passed 4-2 with trustees Harold Hoffman and J. Terry Hanson dissenting.

“This is not related to us,” Hoffman said. “It’s to bail out the fire department. That’s the real issue.”

Both Hoffman and Hanson said they did not not favor a permanent tax increase for a short-term fix.

The West Salem Fire Protection District is seeking more than $388,000 from the village and the towns of Barre and Hamilton. The funding request is to cover its shift to a calender-year budget and to cover loans for equipment purchases and a remodeling project that left the department cash-strapped.

Officials estimated that the impact of the 12 percent increase on taxpayers would be $42 per $100,000 of assessed value, meaning a homeowners with an assessed value of $100,000 would see the village’s portion of their taxes increase by $42.

A property owner whose home was assessed at $200,000 would see the village portion of his or her taxes increase by $84, and so on.

At a 2 percent levy increase, the increase amounts $7 per $100,000 of assessed value.

Those are calculated from last year’s assessment.

Schnitzler said assessed values will go up for 2008, meaning the per taxpayer share of the levy increase might not be as large.

According to information supplied at the meeting by Village Administrator Teresa Schnitzler, if the village chose to not to make the 12 percent levy increase permanent or ongoing, it would forfeit intervening increases allowed under levy limits and revert to the 2007 levy.

“You forever lose your allowed increase if you fashion your referendum that way,” she said.

The village levied $969,527 for 2007.

State-imposed levy limits allow municipalities to increase levies by no more than 2 percent or the percentage change in equalized value of new construction, whichever is greater. West Salem’s new construction rate was 1.806 in 2008.

A 2 percent increase would only have raised the levy by $19,391 — to $988,918 — far short of the $184,662.63 the West Salem Fire Protection District is asking from the village.

“You’re increasing the levy so that’s going to continue to increase taxes,” Hanson said, going on to explain that the next 2 percent increase in future budgets will added to a base that’s grown by 12 percent.

Trustee Merlin Wehrs said compounding of increases would help the fire department keep current in future budgets.

“At this point all we’re doing is raising the levy limit,” said Trustee Diana Engel. “We don’t have to spend it.”

Engel and Manthei together pointed out that 2 percent increases to the budgets after the increase, would amount to more than $2,000.

“I don’t like this referendum, I’ll say that right now,” Hanson said. “If you do this, you get an extra 10 percent from the taxpayers for the rest of their lives.”

“You say we’ve been too tight and that’s what we’re being punished for,” Hoffman told Wehrs. “That’s the way I read it in the paper last week.”

Wehrs was quoted in last week’s Coulee News saying previous conservative budgets have in effect punish West Salem under levy limits.

“We are getting punished for it, that’s how I see it,” Wehrs said.

“There’s one way to avoid it, and that’s not to do it,” Hoffman said.

Exact wording on the resolution will be approved at the next village board meeting. Schnitzler said her deadline to get the information to the county clerks office in time to be placed on the ballot is Sept. 23.