When legislators return to Topeka later this month they will reconsider a measure that limits local property tax increases to the rate of inflation.
The bill was “sausaged” into other legislation in the wee hours of the 2015 session, the longest in state history, when legislators, no doubt, weren’t thinking all too clearly.
From its very inception the bill reeks of political malfeasance, having never received a committee hearing, any public input, or a vote on its individual merits, or lack thereof.
This year, several amendments to the bill are being proposed as well as Gov. Sam Brownback’s desire to have it implemented beginning the first of 2017 as opposed to 2018.
The law is punitive to local governments because it uses an arbitrary figure — the rate of inflation — as the yardstick against which budgets are to be measured.
So say the cost of health insurance premiums for your county workforce increases more than the rate of inflation. Just supposing.
Today’s CPI is less than 1 percent.
Your insurance rates jumped 7 percent? Looks as if some “adjustments” to your overall budget are in order.
Or say a county wants to invest in its airport, including new runways, additional fuel storage or more sophisticated equipment.
In their mind, county officials may view that investment in infrastructure as a way to attract larger industries and in the long run help grow the tax base.
Proponents of the legislation, however, view such investments as taboo unless voters specifically give the go ahead in special elections, at a cost, of course, to local taxpayers.
In addition to not being based in reality, the property tax lid — as with so many recently passed measures — sends the message to local governments, school districts, departments, etc., to hoard any idle funds, instead of investing them in worthwhile projects. That in itself is a self-perpetuating formula for decline.
FROM THE GET-GO the property tax lid was ill conceived, hindering local units of government from deciding how best to meet their local needs.
It’s disingenuous for state legislators — who rant and rave against “big government” — to make city and county affairs their business.
