September 06, 2006

A Bigger Tax Change

The question I get asked most these days is about having a special session. It looks like that will happen in a few weeks. The problem for me is that the focus has been on income tax reform and not on a more pressing tax issue.

The Salt Lake County coucil has put an initiative on the November ballot to approve a property tax increase to pay for light rail in Salt Lake County. I believe this is bad policy. I don't believe this is a good use of property tax and I don't like the way the county is framing the issue.

Using property tax for light rail will affect everybody, but will really affect those on a fixed income and school districts. This is the only way a local district can increase their funds and only when it is approved by the patrons in a district. By increasing the property tax for transit it may stop patrons from increasng property tax later when the schools can prove they really need the increase.

I also don't approve of the way the county has written the ballot initiative. All they are asking the voters to do is approve an $895,000,000 bond. There is no mention of a property tax to pay back the bond or how much it might affect home owners or businesses. The county needs to be more honest with the voters.

Instead of leaving this property tax initiative on the ballot the legislature should change the law so a sales tax has to be approved instead of a property tax. Many are saying that the initiative won't pass. I'm not so sure we should take the gamble. Who's going to fight against the intitiative. Even though it is more of a burden for businesses it will be hard for them to speak agains transit funding, which has become very popular. Even the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has been supporting the initiative.

So the ball is in the Governor's court to put the issue on the special session. The House has already shown strong support to make the change to an optional sales tax. If the issue is put on the call it is time for the Senate to take seriously the need to make the change from property tax to an optional sales tax for transit and transportation.

Posted by Jeff at 09:41 AM | Comments (0)

May 23, 2006

What Makes this Special Session so Special?

The much talked about special legislative session is finally here. I say “finally” only because it will be nice to have the session completed and out of the way. I always am surprised at how excited the media and some political types get over a special session when, for most legislators, a special session is not needed.

This year there are only a couple of items that really should be considered in the special session, and Transportation is one of those issues. We need to deal with the transportation issues so UDOT can start planning for next year.

On the other hand, I am very concerned about the Medicaid issues that have been placed on the agenda. As a result, several legislators want to open bill files on budget issues because this section of the budget will be open. This problem is just what we were concerned about and why we didn’t want to deal with this issue now. We have a task force that will be meeting to discuss Medicaid and give direction to the legislature next year. Why couldn’t we have waited until then? Well, I guess that isn’t our call.

It should be a very interesting day or two.

Posted by Jeff at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)