Revisions/extensions – I forgot to mention that this particular version of the Anti-Tabor comes from Terry Musser, a Pubbie member of the Party of Gubmint.
(Major H/T – Dennis York)
Dennis really does do it all, from discussing MMSD’s favorite rainy-season product to the serious. This time, he heads to the serious (at least until the end) and takes on Assembly Joint Resolution 71, which can fairly be described (and is) as the anti-TABOR. It starts out flawed by exempting sewerage districts and the like from the limits on property tax/fee levies (previous year plus inflation in Milwaukee/Racine plus new construction) and the referendum requrirement to bust and reset the limits. Yep, that’s right, MMSD still gets to jack up the property taxes as much as they want so they can keep dumping the brown hostages into the lake.
Then it goes into the horrid by mandating the state spend AT LEAST the amount it did on local aid the previous year plus inflation plus new construction. So much for getting a handle on 60% of state spending (and before long, it will be 70%, then 80%).
There is a one more kicker to the taxpayers’ hindquarters (or will it be the family jewels?); a very-poorly written (from a taxpayer’s perspective, at least) “emergency” exemption to the limits that takes merely a 2/3rds vote by the governing body to invoke – …any expenditure of a local governmental unit that the governing body of the local governmental unit did not anticipate and in an amount that is greater than 10 percent of the amount of the local governmental unit’s fiscal year budget. Allow me to translate; if 2/3rds of your common council/school board/county board/et al can create a mid-year financial “crisis”, up go the taxes, and more importantly, the ceiling for the following year’s taxes and the floor for the following year’s state spending on local government.
