Prop 3 returns
My 2006 campaign call for limits to property tax increases is still alive as the Governor still likes the idea:
Gov. M. Jodi Rell is already encountering opposition to a property tax cap even though she has not formally asked the legislature to enact one yet.
The top majority leader in the Democrat-controlled Senate has all but declared a property tax cap legislatively dead on arrival.
"We looked at it last year, and we decided it wasn't a good idea," said Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn. (WRA, by Paul Hughes)
The article continued:
"They are not speaking for the taxpayers. The taxpayers in Connecticut want property tax reform," said Christopher Cooper, the governor's chief spokesman...."CCM's answer is for more money for mayors to spend, whereas the governor wants to see that cash kept in local taxpayers' wallets," Cooper said.
I agree with the Governor and have offered a few of my own property tax reform ideas, including some here and here.
Watch out though. Although the Governor's recommendation (last year) included a stipulation for voter override to approve tax increases in excess of 3%, you can be sure that Advocates of Big Government (even at the local level) will be out in force to oppose this measure. They'll offer all sorts of straw men to stop the initiative. But the unfortunate truth is that they don't want things like "voter approval" to stand in their way of ever bigger government.
Tim White
2 comments:
The Town and BOE should be limited to no more than a 3% increases in annual budgets. That means specifically a3% increase overall, how the split happens is not the issue. This would drive them to find savings during the year. Any savings for the BOE could be allowed for the following year. Their budgetary behavior needs to change.
This has been working beautifully in Massachusetts for over 25 years (as Prop. 2 ½).
Contrary to predictions that essential services would suffer, none did. Rather, it forced local gov’ts to cut out the fat and spend more efficiently. Virtually everyone in the state now supports it.
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