On Thursday, the Legislature will have a special session to deal with bond packages and “tax reform.” They will be asked to pass a competing measure that will claim to more “reasonably” address property tax relief. Interpretation: More delays and hollow promises.

At last week’s Legislative work session, we testified that the state’s so-called “Tax Reform plan” contains no property tax relief, has no tax reform and is devoid of details how school funds will be distributed. The proposed bill is a desperate political sham designed solely to compete against the citizen’s initiated referendum (100,000 signatures) in November.

During the testimony, the governor’s staff representative dropped this mysterious $1.3 billion figure. Our bill calls for $264 million to meet the 55 percent obligation. It is Washington-speak, statistical nonsense. The truth about the $1.3 billion is that since 1992, the state’s failure to fund K-12 education at 55 percent has shifted $1.36 billion onto local property taxpayers. That’s a big shift, a lot of broken promises and a lot of gall.

When state officials say they will have to raise $1.3 billion, remember that it is the number of dollars shifted for the past 11 years onto local property taxpayers. By the way, the failed promise began in 1985. We only calculated the damage to property taxes since 1992.

Tell Augusta: Fulfill your promise. Property tax relief now.

Dana K. Lee, president,

Citizens to Reduce Local Property Taxes Statewide, Mechanic Falls

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