After seeing the sound bite version of Mitch's property tax plan, it is time the citizens of our state begin asking questions.
We were sold down the river on the toll road deal and we are about to get it again.
1. What are the complete plans for reduction in local government? Will we still have trustees, or will counties be run from the county seat?
2. How will this affect the libraries? Will the proposals from the Governor's Blue Ribbon panel be followed? These included but were not limited to: Libraries be condensed to a single one in each county, or those libraries serving fewer than 10,000 people are closed.
3. How will this affect emergency services such as fire and EMS now administered by townships? Will there still be volunteer fire and EMS services? Will these services be consolidated into fewer departments? Will we go to a county fire department system? How will this affect response times and your insurance premiums?
4. Will agriculture land values for tax purposes be changed from the current base value of $800 an acre (average sale prices are closer to $3,700 per acre)? Will farmland be valued as a business commodity and fall under the 3 percent of appraised value as opposed to the 1 percent for personal property?
5. How will this affect our schools? Will we still have local school boards? Since all funds will come from the state, will they have any control? Will the larger corporations have a larger voice at the state level and therefore receive a greater proportion of funds?
6. Is the property tax issue being used to consolidate government power to the county seats and Statehouse? Will these changes result in your loss of local government representation? Will appointed assessors be accountable to the state or to those they are assessing? What criteria will be used to determine the validity of the assessments?
7. What guarantees are going to be put in place to assure the tax caps are amended to the state constitution after the sales tax increase among other things are passed into law?
Bauer has already stated he sees no reason to amend the constitution, which will leave us right where we are but with far less capability of recourse to fix the core issues and higher a sales tax. The current members of our state government at all levels have had several years to fix this situation and have done nothing. One must assume it has been allowed to reach the current crisis by design. The citizens of the state had better beware of the fixes offered or they will find themselves with less control and ever higher taxes.
