Property Tax Relief Shell-Game Continues
It’s no secret that many of us have been critical of the way the state legislature has approached property tax relief over the past eight years.
To rehash the problems: the state should not have gotten into the business of buying-down property taxes to begin with. However, that is ground long lost to bad public policy.
From the point that the state interjected itself into the property tax buy-down business, the cost of the approach has gone from just over $100 million in 2007-09 to over $800 million during the current 2013-15 budget cycle.
The difference in the 2013 legislative session came when the legislature integrated much of the property tax buy-down program into overall all long term permanent education funding.
Over half of the $850 million for property tax relief in 2013 was simply a continuation of the previous buy-down program. But to make the …
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