In the News Spending Lid Would Boost Property Taxes Lincoln Journal Star June 18, 2006 It’s ironic that supporters of state spending limits are mounting a multi-state push for lids styled after one in Colorado just after Colorado voters decided to suspend theirs for five years. Nebraska voters ought to take a hint. Don’t sign the petition to create one here. The biggest problem with the proposed lid is that it would put more pressure on the property tax base. That’s the last thing that Nebraska needs. According to the Tax Foundation, Nebraska ranked 16th in the nation in 2004 for per capita payment of property taxes. The burden is particularly onerous in rural Nebraska. A study released by MLB Planning and Policy Research of Lincoln for the Nebraska Farm Bureau showed that Nebraska ranks highest of seven Midwestern states in the amount of taxes paid on agricultural land. The study released this February showed that the 10 counties with highest property tax burden are all in Nebraska. The spending lid proposed by Stop Overspending Nebraska simply targets state spending, which is derived almost entirely from sales and income taxes. In Colorado, where the Taxpayer Bill of Rights was written into the state constitution in 1992, Colorado dropped from 35th to 49th in the nation in K-12 spending. In Nebraska, a significant proportion of the increase in state spending was because of major increases in the amount of state aid to schools. A spending lid would make it more difficult to continue that trend. And if state funds are not available, guess what? Local school boards will be faced with tough questions. Should they boost property taxes or should they lay off teachers? The support that Nebraska communities have for their schools remains strong. As much as it may appall those in the tax-cut movement, Nebraska voters even now vote on a fairly regular basis to authorize their local school boards to exceed the state-mandated tax rate lid. In too many counties, farmers and other property taxpayers already are paying for most of the local infrastructure, such as schools, roads, jails and fire protection. Nebraska arguably may need tax reform — the Journal Star in the past has called for a blue-ribbon tax summit to discuss fundamental change in Nebraska’s tax structure — but the proposed spending lid would just make the state’s property tax problem worse. Coloradoans are now finding themselves going from state to state telling other taxpayers not to make the same mistake they did. Kristi Hargrove, who described herself as a Republican fiscal conservative and PTA mom who voted for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, recently told reporters that “People didn’t understand the consequences of what they were voting for,” she said. Ultimately the state’s finances created such a “mess” that voters suspended it, Hargrove said. There’s no need for Nebraska to make the same mistake. Keep the SOS proposal off the ballot. Don’t sign the petition.