LEWISTON – Lewiston taxpayers would see a 6.1 percent drop in their tax bill if Maine voters approve a tax reform issue at the polls Tuesday.

The City Council agreed to cut the city’s property tax rate by 6.1 percent in 2005 if voters adopt question 1A next week. That would cut $1.70 off the city’s current property tax rate of $27.70 per $1,000, said City Administrator Jim Bennett.

“The critics of 1A have always said that there is no guarantee that it will result in lower property taxes,” Bennett said. “They think we’ll just burn through it and spend it or put five new administrators in the schools. I don’t see any harm in telling them now that we will reduce property taxes.”

Voters will be asked next week to require the state to pay for 55 percent of education costs beginning in fiscal 2006. The state pays about 43 percent of those costs now.

Passing the bill would require the state to come up with an additional $246 million annually.

Councilors did add caveats, saying the city would have to get the new education revenues from the state before they cut taxes. They also gave themselves an out in case the state cuts other money it gives the city in response to the new rules.

But Councilor Lillian O’Brien, who also serves as one of Lewiston’s representatives to the state House of Representatives, argued against 1A. It would tie the state’s hands and force it to raise other taxes.

“You can’t have services, like more aid to education, without having a way to pay for them,” O’Brien said. “The bills have to be paid somehow.”

The resolution passed the council by a 5-1 vote, with O’Brien the sole dissenter.

Bob Stone of 13 Woodside Drive, who had earlier unsuccessfully sought legislative election, said the council’s decision was totally political.

“And I think it was one they didn’t have to make, because I think it’s going to pass,” Stone said.

Stone promoted one of two competing measures last fall. One alternative, measure 1B, would have given the state several years fund 55 percent of local education. Stone’s measure, 1C, wouldn’t have changed the tax code.

Question 1A received 38 percent of the vote last year. That was more than the others, but not enough to become law, prompting this June’s run-off vote.

“When you look at 1A and 1B from last year, you see that 73 percent voted for some form of this,” Stone said. “So I think it’s a darn good chance that it will pass this time.”

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