If you own a house in Auburn, you pay taxes.

If you own personal property in Auburn, you pay taxes.

If you’re a quasi-governmental body, you get a free pass.

Why?

Why should the Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments receive special treatment?

Current state law says AVCOG must pay property taxes. The organization owes the city more than $25,000 for last year’s real estate and personal property taxes, which were due in July and September, but AVCOG hasn’t paid.

Instead of aggressively pursuing the delinquent bill, city councilors want to amend state law in AVCOG’s favor. They voted, 4-2, to support legislation that would make AVCOG and similar organizations exempt from real estate and property taxes.

The city would rather change the law for the entire state – and take revenue out of the hands of other municipalities that host such organizations – than collect what is owed.

Who, exactly, is the council representing here? Certainly, it’s not taxpayers.

Auburn pays annual dues, along with 43 other communities, to AVCOG. For the city, that’s more than $19,000 a year. The city should not be expected to pay dues and also to waive AVCOG’s tax liability.

Councilor Marcel Bilodeau said AVCOG provides valuable services to the city. We don’t doubt that. But he went on to say that if the taxes are assessed, AVCOG might start charging for those services. The simple truth is, they already do charge. That’s why the city pays dues.

AVCOG should pay its tax bills, and the City Council shouldn’t be so quick to let them off the hook.


Shell game


Hospitals are battling it out with the governor over Medicaid reimbursement rates and his attempts to shave $109 million off the budget by June.

Gov. John Baldacci says hospitals can afford his proposed cuts and, in the long-term, will see the amount of money they receive from the government grow. Hospitals say the cuts will force layoffs and hurt patient care.

To reduce the dollar amount of the cuts, some Democrats and the governor’s office are seeking middle ground by pushing for a return of the “sick” tax, which could significantly reduce the amount hospitals would lose. We applaud efforts to overcome this impasse, but the “tax-and-match” plan bothers us.

Essentially, the state would impose a tax on hospitals, which would increase their costs. The new, higher costs would allow the hospitals to qualify for more federal dollars. Once the hospitals collect from the feds, the state would reimburse the original tax.

In the past, similar plans in the state have failed. When budgets got pinched, the state reduced the amount of the promised refund. Hospitals are afraid the same thing might happen again.

Sticking the federal government with a higher percentage of the cost of health care seems like an easy solution – just pass the buck. But such questionable tactics helped create the befuddled system we’re stuck with today.

The state shouldn’t participate in a shell game of artificially increasing health care costs just to scam the federal government out of more money.
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