To the editor: We have become increasingly aware in

To the editor:

We have become increasingly aware in recent weeks that, through no fault of yours, your readers are being fed an indigestible mass of confusing and often misleading material about the county budget. To find out for ourselves how much taxes and spending have increased in recent years, and why, we have drawn on some experience to collect and analyze official county income-outgo data covering the ffest decade.

While our investigation is far from finished, interesting pictures are emerging. We thought you might like to share the results with your readers.

We shall try to present our findings in strictly factual form so your readers can draw their own conclusions. This requires a heavy emphasis on statistics, but we shall try not to overdose your readers on masses of data.

For starters, we take a close look at the central issue, the tax rate on real estate. It is important to understand that, while a tax on real estate finances only a bit more than a fifth of the county’s expenditures, its role is crucial. Along with the property tax on autos, it is the only major revenue source directly under the Supervisors’ control. Once the expenditure needs for the year ahead have been determined and the non-property-tax elements of income have been estimated, it is to the property tax the supervisors must turn to fill the gap.

What, then, has happened to the tax on real estate? Nelson Lane laments that the tax has doubled in three years. And, indeed, a superficial look at the rate alone does show that it has gone from 32 cents in the 1982-83 year to 50 cents now - a rise of 56.3 percent. But a close look reveals that this apparent rise is a myth that has contributed little if anything to increased support of education and other public services.

The reason is twofold. One. obviously, is inflation. The Consumer Price Index for 1982 was 289.1. For the past 12 months it has averaged 314.8, a climb of 8.9 percent. Simply put. this means that our tax rate of 50 cents has the buying power of 45.9 cents in 1982 prices. You will appreciate that to the extent that taxpayers fail to keep the funding of services in line with prices, to that extent we are forcing our teachers and other public servants to pay a part of our costs of inflation - not to mention the sacrifices we are demanding of our children in their education program.

But that is far from all. The second, and principal part of the apparent climb in the tax rate is due to the loss of millions of dollars in property-tax base when the county adopted Land-Use Value-or LL'Y-the assessment of farm land for its value in farming