CITIZENS FOR LIMITED TAXATION |
Attack on Proposition 2½: Part 2 - In a series of however many it takes You must have noticed that Senator JoAnn Sprague’s amendment to remove the Overlay exclusion from the municipal aid package almost passed (17-21), an unusually close vote for the Senate. This alone should raise a red "news!" flag. There were similar close votes on Proposition 2½ in the past, because raising property taxes is a big deal. Seventeen senators understood exactly what this is about, even if reporters except for AP’s Steve LeBlanc (bravo Steve!) cannot. One of these senators was the Ways & Means Chairman! Others were state reps when the Overlay was debated in the early ‘90s. They knew they would be voting to assault Prop 2½ and decided not to do this – until a further amendment, which seemed to reassure some of them though we don’t know why. The Overlay exclusion passed the Senate with a final vote of 25-11. The original Senate version tried to make the Overlay exclusion seem like a minor technical adjustment. To further this illusion, it was drafted to give assessors alone the power to do it, without other local officials being involved. The further amendment gives the community’s chief executive officer, instead of the assessors, the power to hike the property tax by the amount previously spent on abatements. But this doesn’t address the real problem. Here is the easiest way to understand this issue. Proposition 2½ is not about appropriations; it’s not a spending limit. Proposition 2½ is a TAXATION limit. It doesn’t care how the tax money is spent: on public safety, education, public works, the library, services for any particular group, abatements for the elderly or the over-assessed. Prop 2½ simply says that no matter if you spend the money on services, or if you save it in a stabilization fund, or if you use it to pay debts, or if you give it away, or if you cook and eat it: you can’t increase the annual levy more than 2½ percent over the previous year’s levy, except for new growth or overrides. Previous year’s levy is X. This year’s levy is X + 2.5% of last year’s X + new growth + overrides if you can get them. The majority of the House and 25 senators want to increase that 2.5% so the city or town has more money to spend. |