The measure to end property tax in North Dakota fails.
At least I hope I'm interpreting the results correctly.
The legislature should tweak the property tax law but to completely eliminate it would have been a potential disaster on so many levels.
I recently moved from Dickinson to California. Both areas have the same property tax rate. Take home value times 1.2 = yearly property tax. CA is broke so they need the money. ND is awash in surplus oil money. Makes no sense. ND needs to adjust their rate to match the times!
ReplyDeleteThe legislature is a better way to handle it. Much better to keep property tax - local funding -- school funding at local level, not have state distribute money to school districts.
DeleteBut I agree; property taxes can be brought down.
Others can argue there are better ways to return oil royalties to North Dakota residents. I think North Dakota is still trying to sort out what to do with all the cash.
I have no dog in the fight, so I won't say a lot (which is very unlike me).
This election wasn't about sharing oil wealth. It was about controlling local government. The last thing most North Dakotan want is to turn over control of local governement finance to the State Legislature. If this measure had passed, it would have resulted in the legislature spending money, as influenced by the biggest / strongest lobbying groups (favoring the big cities like Fargo or big organizations such as various unions), leaving the typical small rural government in North Dakota to wither on the vine.
ReplyDeleteThe entire bill is linked. When reading, observe that the first 2 taxes that were provisioned for usage to replace the property were 1) the oil and gas extraction tax; and, 2) the oil and gas production tax.
DeleteThen other different taxes including sales and income tax was languaged. See parts 2-4
https://vip.sos.nd.gov/pdfs/Portals/FullTextofMeasure2-June12,2012.pdf
IMHO, I see a political undertone to the bill provision that linked oil and gas extraction and production tax as the primary sources to replace lost property taxes. Because of the higher value of farmland, and because of the higher value of city real estate, are both located in the Red River valley, that means that the eastern part of the state would have been the biggest dollar beneficiary of property tax reduction, if the bill had passed; a back door way for the envious east to tap into the oil revenue.
DeleteBut as I said in my previous post, the primary issue for most folks that I visited with, was the power shift from the local county governments to the state legislature. Since the state was formed, the more rural counties, while typically poor, at least maintained their local control on property taxes, and thus has some control over the revenues that they could spend, deciding to raise or lower property taxes as the population in that particular county saw fit. But sub-paragrpahs 2 and 3 of section 2 of this bill would have taken that power (to raise/lower revenue allocated to the counties) away from the counties, giving it to the legislature. All the bill did was to "toss a bone" to the counties, telling them they should be happy with what the legislature would allocate to them to spend in future years, using the 2012 share as a base. But that the counties would have to lobby the legislature, if they felt their share in future years should increase, making counties and local government total wards of the legislature. And guess what part of the ND usually controls the legistature? IMHO, this is a matter that should raise alarm for all counties, whether they are situated in the east or the west.
I agree completely with you, some points more than others. If folks liked the idea of turning local funding for the schools over to the state government, why not turn over funding for schools across the nation to the federal government in DC? [I'm sure there are some who would advocate for this. Smile.]
DeleteJMO but if you want to get rid of a tax I would get rid of....
ReplyDelete1.Sales tax putting ND on par with Mont and closer to Minn (no tax on food and most clothes)
2. Income tax putting ND on par with South Dakota (not a postcard of success)
3. Reduceduction on the first 250,000 of property value?
Now, that I can agree with, particularly the first two points. I might reduce the dollar amount for the property value, and add a California Prop 13 clause, but otherwise you have got it exactly right.
DeleteThank you very much for taking time to comment. But I agree wholeheartedly with your views with some tweaking of point 3. But even that, not a deal breaker.