62 Comments - Ray del Camino - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 11:53 am: No. Don’t handcuff yourself or take a policy tool off the table unilaterally. - Fantasma - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:01 pm: This is a great political bill, but that’s just what it is, political. Rep. Franks should not try to tie the hands of our local units of goverment, just as other units of goverment should not try to tie the hands of the GA. - Retired Non-Union Guy - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:02 pm: No, but for a different reason. If home values go down, then the assessing board should lower the values (which they don’t), thereby lowering the taxes. - Cook County Commoner - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:03 pm: No. Don’t freeze the taxes. Reasses the properties in that year and immediately lower the property taxes. And freeze rate increases by the taxing bodies. Better yet, find a better way to fund public education. Or at least amend the state constitution to allow means testing of families who use public education for their children. - thechampaignlife - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:05 pm: I said no. In a perfect world, local government units would have a sufficient rainy day fund to weather downturns without a revenue increase. However, in reality, government costs increase as the economy sinks. More kids need free school lunches, etc. Major snow events also don’t care much for the state of the economy. If property taxes are going to be relied upon as a major source of income for local governments, flexiblity is going to need to exist in all economic conditions. Imagine what a few years of 10%+ inflation during a stagnant economy such as 1979-1981 would do to a local budget. Even with the current cap, funds would be lost in stagflation because of the 5% cap and couldn’t be recovered in the future without a referendum. Let the referendum be voting people in and out of office based on their ability to manage fiscal affairs. - Apple - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:10 pm: Yes. The property tax cap, or PTELL, was developed at a time when legislators didn’t anticipate such levels of devaluation. It’s currently at 5% or the rate of inflation. You can argue that the percentage be lowered, as opposed to a all out freeze, but it’s on the right track. Property taxes shouldn’t increase 4%+ year after year when more and more people owe more than their homes are worth. - left Out - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:16 pm: Tax rates in Illinois have almost no flexibility in the true meaning of the word. Tax rates almost always go up (the Cook County sales tax ‘decrease’ is not a true decrease but a ‘decrease of an increase’). A tax freeze is not what is needed when property values but it is better than nothing. The idea of an immediate reasses of the property is good one but not workable. The cost of doing a reasses would be very high and the trained staff now available is just not there at the current time. - mokenavince - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:17 pm: No some areas would never come back if you could not lower taxes. Frozen means frozen no movement up or down. A perfect political idea. - 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:23 pm: No. The larger problem is how we assess property values in the first place. Market value is almost completely disconnected from assessed vaule. Since they aren’t connected, why peg the increase to market value and not assessed value? A better bill would enable assessors to more closely tie assessed value to market value. If that was possible, then Franks’ bill might make sense. Otherwise, it’s just a political gimmick that will do more harm than good. There are really good reasons why we don’t closely tie market prices to assessments too, so either we completely revamp how property is assessed for tax purposes or we ignore Franks’ feel-good bill. - Apple - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:24 pm: No some areas would never come back if you could not lower taxes. Frozen means frozen no movement up or down. A perfect political idea. —- I think that saying ‘frozen’ may not be accurate. My understanding - it prevents the growth of property taxes. It does nothing to prevent reductions. - JustaJoe - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:24 pm: I said YES because of the referendum caveat. However, I think that there needs to be reform of the education portion of the property tax…toward a split between a dedication of a portion of the state income tax (base funding per student) and the education component of the property tax (local voice retained). There is always talk of property tax reform, but nothing ever gets done. - soccermom - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:26 pm: I don’t usually quote the Governor, but “This one sounds good if you say it fast.” - CJLane - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:35 pm: “If home values go down, then the assessing board should lower the values (which they don’t), thereby lowering the taxes. ” But that’s not how it works, at least in Cook County. How it works is you take the total government bill (that is to be paid by property tax) and divide it by the total (equalized) assessed value. So, if everyone’s assessed value goes down the same percentage, then everyone’s taxes remain the same. The bill proposes to limit the *LEVY*, meaning that that total tax collected cannot increase. That will *NOT* mean that any given property will see a decrease in its assessed taxes–it will only decrease the taxes on a property which has its equalized assessed value decrease by a higher percentage than the aggregate equalized assessed value. Thus: In year one, the levy is $1,000,000, and the aggregate value is also $1,000,000. Your house has an eav of $1,000, you pay $1,000 in tax. In year two, with the new legislation, the levy remains $1,000,000, because the aggregate EAV dropped to $900,000. But your house is still assessed at $1,000, so your taxes go *UP* to $1,111. Unless your assessment drops by 10% or more, your taxes will be *higher* in year two. Yes, this will cause overall taxes to be lower than otherwise, when the levy could have increased to $1,050,000, but don’t mistake this for legislation which will definitely lower *your* taxes. - bourbonrich - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:39 pm: If the total tax requested is not frozen, then those whose assessments don’t go down have to subsidize those whose do. The key is to stop the guaranteed increase in tax income for every taxing body regardless of the condition of the real estate. I think this bill is more about tax levies than on assessments. - Rep. Ed Sullivan - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:42 pm: Retired Non-Union guy & 47th ward, Too many people believe their assessed value creates their property tax burden. The reality is that through the levy process the burden is created first and then apportioned by the assessed value. You could change to a market value system or even cut everyone’s assessed value in half and that will not change the amount of taxes being requested. Here is an illustration: 5 couples go do dinner and the tab is $500. Each couple would owe $100. What happens if one couple leaves early without paying their portion of the bill? The restaurant(Taxing Bodies) still wants to collect their $500. So now the $500 bill is spread over 4 couples(Assessed value)and they need to pay $125 each. Well the same logic applies to property taxes in today’s depreciated real estate market. There is a predetermined amount of taxes requested by local government with less assessed value to spread the bill over. So what is happening is that assessed values are decreasing and tax bills are generally going up. - wordslinger - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:43 pm: No. This is trying to impose discipline on someone else that you haven’t demonstrated yourself. Get square with local governments and it might not be such an issue. - 3 beers to Springfield - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:51 pm: The legislature has to get out of the business of regulating proeprty taxes. Property taxes are a local tax and the effectiveness of local taxing bodies in use and maintenance of reasonable levies should be evaluated by voters at the local level. The legislature continues to bestow generous property tax exemptions to homeowners regardless of income, a second exemption to homeowners over 65 regardless of income, and property tax freezes for over 65 taxpayers with incomes well above the median income for the area where they live. What legislators don’t semm to understand is in many instances this does not decrease the property tax income available to taxing bodies, but rather shifts the burden to young families and owners of residential rental, commercial and industrial properties. - Michelle Flaherty - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:51 pm: No, because Jack Franks is the sponsor which means it’s not a serious effort to begin with. - Plutocrat03 - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:52 pm: Seems like a gimmick. I would settle for a fair appraisal. - Cal Skinner - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 12:56 pm: Retired Non-Union Guy is incorrect that tax bills would go down if assessment were cut. Since the Tax Cap took effect, the inflation rate has been well above the increase in the CPI until recently. That meant the county clerks had to cut tax RATES in order to keep the extension within the CPI increase limits. Now I’ll bet almost every tax district in Illinois is below its statutory tax rate limit. That being the case, when a tax district asks for more money, it gets it. The reason is that the county clerks just raise the rates until they bring in the amount allowed by the Tax Cap. - 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:01 pm: Thanks Rep. Sullivan, and I do understand that the burden comes from the various taxing bodies increasing their levies. But to take your analogy a step further, of the five couples at dinner, one orders lobster (renovates an older home next door to me), and another only orders soup (the senior citizen next door on the other side who bought her home 40 years ago, and it’s falling apart). Because we only assess property every 3 years in Cook County, it is very possible that my house will have an EAV comparable to my neighbors, despite the new neighbor’s house being worth a lot more than mine on the market, while mine is worth more than the Senior’s house next door. To the assessor, they might look the same. To potential buyers, they aren’t even close. So unless Franks’ bill does something about assessed valuation, then using a decrease in market value doesn’t make sense. I assume in your analogy, the five couples are friends and don’t bother with the formality of splitting the bill up based on what was consumed. For tax purposes, as you can imagine, most of us don’t want to have soup but pay for someone else’s lobster. - dupage dan - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:01 pm: I worry about Californie type tax freezes that have frozen that state. However, for property taxes to continue to rise in the face of lower values is unfair. Some system of making sure that the taxes don’t rise during a downturn should be place. Is this the right way? Not sure. - Anon - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:06 pm: No. The bill only applies to taxing districts under PTELL. One of the underlying reasons for PTELL was that CPI was a better way of measuring increased cost to taxing districts than changes in property values. So if property values increased 10%, but CPI only increased 3%, taxing districts could only increase their levy by 3% (with exceptions for new construction and EAV that used to be in a TIF if any…) So if a levy has no bearing on how much property values rise, why should it matter if they decrease. You can’t have it both ways. Either the levy should follow property values or the CPI, (or some other measure) but not the measure that is most convinient in a particular year. Consistency. - CJLane - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:08 pm: “Some system of making sure that the taxes don’t rise during a downturn should be place. Is this the right way? Not sure. ” If you are concerned about *your* property taxes not gong up, this bill does *nothing* to assure that. It does *nothing* to limit your share of the total tax bill, it merely limits the total tax bill. As others have said, it’s a stunt/gimmick/political rather than a sound policy change to address concerns of individuals. - D.P. Gumby - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:10 pm: I know and like Jack, but this is a bad idea for many of the reasons state already. Tinkering w/ property tax is just rearranging deck chairs on Titanic. The whole reliance on prop tax is archaic and must go! - CJLane - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:21 pm: “The whole reliance on prop tax is archaic and must go! ” It’s the only tax we have that reasonably resembles a “wealth” tax–replacing property tax revenue entirely with an income tax would discourage the reporting of income earned in municipalities with higher costs, and encourage more game playing like the Kankakee and Channahon RTA sales tax dodge. - jake - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:23 pm: a. stunt b. gimmick c. silly d. all of the above - Rep. Ed Sullivan - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:26 pm: 47th ward, You just brought forth the fundamental flaw in the property tax code. An assessor cannot possibly assess property “equitably” and according to “market value” as they are required. Basically for the reasons you just described. A person could have a house identical to their neighbors and the houses could have very different market values. For this reason the law uses multiple years of data and throws out outlier sales by using median values. Remember we are talking about “mass appraisal” and not individual appraisal. A good assessor will get close but never perfect. But, if there was perfection in the assessment process the problem of taxes going up while assessments are going down would still apply. - Justice - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:27 pm: Lowering taxes always sounds good but the effects of lowering property taxes can be dramatic as that is where our schools receive a big chunk of their funding. Lower the tax, reduce school funding? Raise the tax and raise the ire of the public. Whichever course we chart, it must include answers for the purpose of the tax and remedies for that purpose if we elect to deprive it. Though I prefer only those at the lake pay property taxes, i.e. Rich, it is a necessary evil for all of us…or we can hope Governor Quinn finds a way to provide relief while he is in China. At this juncture, without a detailed plan, the recommendation appears more of a gimmick….but a good sounding one if only it would work. - Apple - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:34 pm: If nothing else, I hope this starts a conversation about ways of stopping Illinois’ 7000+ local taxing units from increasing taxes on a whim. There needs to be shared sacrifice. - Shemp - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:39 pm: Let’s see, the State creates have the rules that drive up local government costs (pension rules, prevailing wage rules etc), then delays payments to local governments to keep thier own rear ends out of more trouble, then they raise income tax 66% then they want to tell local governments they can’t have the authority to adjust their revenues??? That’s rich. - 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:41 pm: Rep. Sullivan, So essentially all Franks’ bill does is tell local units of government to stop hiking property taxes without a referendum when home values plummet. And of course, we already have the tax cap bill that prevents them from raising taxes when property values are rising, so this just completes the ban on local property tax hikes without a referendum. More to the point, why did Franks cloak this in the language of plummeting home values and underwater homeowners if there is no relationship between them? He just doesn’t want schools and local governments to raise their levies beyond inflation. He should just say so. His bill is a cynical attempt to hide his true motivation, which is to starve local governments. Some local governments are profligate spenders. Most aren’t. Maybe next time Franks can sponsor a bill to end inflation. Then he’d be on to something. - yinn - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:45 pm: I voted yes because I’d like to see more of these decisions brought to referendum. However, the units of government I have the most gripes with (city & component unit public library) are Home Rule and not subject to PTEL anyway. - Shemp - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:47 pm: ===If nothing else, I hope this starts a conversation about ways of stopping Illinois’ 7000+ local taxing units from increasing taxes on a whim. There needs to be shared sacrifice.=== Our local levy has only gone up for police and fire pensions, things locals can’t control, but are burdened with funding. You tell me I can bypass mandatory prevailing wage in construction contracts (as required by state law), tell me that public safety unions can’t go to binding arbitration (as required by state law) and tell me that I can design my own local retirement system that doesn’t allow police and fire to retire at 50 (as required by state law) and I’ll happily show you local government that can contain costs in bad times. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 1:52 pm: We shouldn’t raise property taxes when property values are declining or when property values are increasing and - therefore - property tax revenues are increasing. Property taxes should only be increased when the property value of every single parcel is exactly what it was the year before. To the penny. - CJLane - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:02 pm: “We shouldn’t raise property taxes … when property values are increasing and - therefore - property tax revenues are increasing.” Where in Illinois does it work this way? It does not work this way for the 40+% of Illinoisans who live in Cook County. Equally rising assessed values mean lowered rates, not (necessarily) higher taxes. If your property’s assessed value is rising faster than aggregate assessed value, your taxes will go up, even if the aggregate tax burden stays the same (and possibly even if it drops). - Anonymous - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:05 pm: when i was in the senate, assessors and boards of review were reversed by the PTAB, the assessor would get even by raising your assessment the next year and be over the reversal. My bill stopped that so only a sale or quadrenial could change the assessment. tom dunn class of 1987-97 - Team Sleep - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:05 pm: I voted “yes” without realizing that a dip in taxes could occur when a dip in values occur. However, if that’s the only way to keep property tax gauging from being implemented by local officials, then it’s a good idea. When Chris Christie cut expenditures, local leaders in New Jersey acted like they were forced to raise property taxes and local sales taxes. They may have felt those increases were necessary, but they could have just as easily cut or streamlines services or put caps on costs. - Just Observing - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:09 pm: Rep. Ed Sullivan hit the nail on on the head. Lower property values have nothing to do with government spending. - Team Sleep - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:09 pm: Sorry - that should be “gouging”, not “gauging”. - Carl Nyberg - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:10 pm: Wouldn’t this create an incentive for government haters to keep the economy in the doldrums? Property taxes are too high. And property owners are kinda getting shafted with increases when the economy stagnates. But the solution is to get more revenue from people who can pay and to get people to work, which both increases revenue and decreases demand for services. - D.P. Gumby - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:19 pm: Interesting point on the “wealth tax”. But so much of property tax downstate can fall on rural and elderly who may be “property rich, but money poor”. I should have rephrased that the total reliance on property tax must go. Income tax is more progressive; but it is a balance. - CJLane - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:23 pm: “so much of property tax downstate can fall on rural and elderly who may be “property rich, but money poor”. ” I am (pretty clearly I think) looking at it from the metro Chicago perspective. And your issue is why there are exemptions and freezes for owner occupants over 65. We have neighbors who pay about 10% of the average tax bill on our block. - x ace - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:23 pm: Yes - The public is incensed when they vote down a referendum and then see the school district taxes increase anyway. This bill won’t solve the ultimate issues but maybe it responds to the public outrage and maybe it will force the addressing of those ultimate issues at all levels. Big maybe but worth a try. - wishbone - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:23 pm: Absolutely not. Proposition 13 all but destroyed California. - Jake From Elwood - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:31 pm: A good deal of non-home-rule taxing bodies are feeling the pinch of PTELL even without this goofy Franks bill. Remember a decrease in assessed valuation causes the tax rates to increase artificially. Some taxing bodies are now exceeding the individual fund maximums and cannot even get the allowable consumer price index increase under PTELL. So I voted no. - Pot calling kettle - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:49 pm: ==I voted yes because I’d like to see more of these decisions brought to referendum.== This gets to the heart of the matter for me. Why not pay more attention to the people you elect? We elect people to run counties, schools, etc, and then ask for laws like this that tie their hands. Why? if you don’t trust the person to do what is in the best interest of the county, school, etc, don’t vote for them. The whole idea of a representative democracy is that we elect people who are willing to spend the time to understand the issues surrounding the entity they serve and the people living in the district. To allow a referendum on one aspect of the system (in this case part of the tax revenues) throws the whole system into disarray. Because it allows people to vote a single interest without having to worry about the array of consequences. A budget is built by balancing what is needed and wanted in services with what the taxed public is able and willing to pay. In order to do its job well, a board needs to be able to work both sides of the budget equation. - zatoichi - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 2:50 pm: My mom’s house dropped $70,000 in assessed value. She is 50 year owner in a town where pricing has swung wildly and the local public services are getting whacked because the tax base has changed so much. There is a push to increase taxes just to maintain what they have had. Her neighbors are concerned about ongoing affordability. She qualifies for exemptions, but she is very worried what effect property taxes will have if she wants to sell. If frozen means they do not go down then NO. - Apple - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:01 pm: Again, Rich, respectfully, should not have used the word ‘frozen’ - THIS DOES NOT MEAN that they can’t go down. Franks hasn’t used that word, neither did Greg Hinz. It only impacts the GROWTH. - Apple - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:08 pm: Hinz also fails to point out that Colvin is in House Leadership, as well as a sponsor of this bill. - Conservative Veteran - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:20 pm: I voted no. If real estate values decrease, it should be legal for the amount of property taxes to increase, if a government increases the percentage that the government will levy. However, I hope that won’t happen, since I think that all governments should cut tax rates. Usually, if politicians increase tax rates, they should lose their next elections. - Old Abe - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:30 pm: Illinois is broke, but nothing changes. A recent tax hike was spent in a number of days by the usual political leaders that buy votes with entitlements. Illinois people haven’t learned yet that the actual source of those entitlements are themselves. They think money grows in Springfield and is free. For the welfare crowd that is true, the rest of the people, being products of the poor school systems in the state, don’t even know it - Its Just Me - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:47 pm: I can’t help but notice the bill doesn’t apply to Crook County. - Wensicia - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:50 pm: No, many school districts in high minority communities already have less to work with because of state cuts; while years of lower property values have hurt districts like mine where the student population is steadily increasing due to the influx of larger families. - Pot calling kettle - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 3:52 pm: ==However, I hope that won’t happen, since I think that all governments should cut tax rates. Usually, if politicians increase tax rates, they should lose their next elections.== Since more is already being spent than taken in, what would you cut? Are the schools too good? The fire department over-equipped? The police over-staffed? The roads too nice? That’s where property taxes go. This is the problem with such a law. Everyone thinks their taxes should be lower, and that’s how they vote. But try to get a list of meaningful cuts… Can you imagine many someone posting: “I think that all governments should cut services in a big way. Usually, if politicians improve schools, roads, and safety services, they should lose their next elections.” I think not, but if you tie their hands on revenue, that’s exactly what will need to happen. - Rep. Ed Sullivan - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:09 pm: 47th ward, In the boom years when there was new construction which is not capped taxing bodies were able to raise levies fairly robustly. Assessed values were going up so the tax rates were falling. Local government would say “hey, we lowered your tax rate so your taxes going up are because of your assessed value.” So, homeowners have been programmed to believe that property taxes are tied to assessed values. Assessed values go up taxes go up. Assessed values go down taxes go down. There are some angry people out there. I have no idea of Rep. Franks motivation. The net effect of his bill is to limit levy increases in an economy were people are suffering and cutting back. Plummeting home values and underwater mortgages are part of the overall economic problem. In the end I personally do not think it is all that bad to force some openness to the spending side of local governments by forcing them to prove their case before the voters through referendum. - Just the Facts - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:13 pm: I voted no - this is either cynical political pandering by Franks, or it reflects stunning ignorance of the manner in which the property tax system works. CJLane has set forth a good and cogent explanation of the property tax process that I won’t repeat again. The Department of Revenue, as I recall, also has a publication on the web site that provides a good introduction and explanation of the property tax process. The fact that property values decline doesn’t affect the amount of money needed by the various local taxing bodies. I don’t like the amount of property taxes I am compelled to pay. There are ridiculous number of taxing districts financed with my property taxes in addition to the schools and city - airport authority, convention center, etc. But, that’s an issue for another day. - 47th Ward - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:18 pm: Thanks Rep. Sullivan, I am not a fan of direct democracy. I believe in electing representatives and then holding them accountable. But I respect your opinion on this and will agree to disagree about the wisdom of narrowly focused referenda. - Shemp - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:31 pm: ===In the end I personally do not think it is all that bad to force some openness to the spending side of local governments by forcing them to prove their case before the voters through referendum.=== Really? I field inquiries from people that have no idea what their levy pays for, how it’s set or anything else. To think one can explain to the electorate (either out of ignorance or apathy) the difference between a fire protection levy and a fire pension levy and that one is capped at .1500 while the other is uncapped or what a tort levy is eligible to be expended on etc is asking a lot. I think the last local election turned out 13% of the vote locally. That’s hard core apathy. People will tell you to cut taxes, but when the State pension code says I’ll be funded at x ratio on x date, I don’t have leeway. When the ILRB arbitrator says you will pay y and you will schedule z and you will only collect n for the employees share of health care, there’s not a lot of wiggle room and there’s an even smaller amount of understanding about the constraints most municipalities have. So it’s then too late when no one turns out to support the referendum and the fire station gets closed or the police officers get laid off. You want more openness at teh local level? Get rid of all the layers so people can focus their attention. What % of people in the state have any idea what a township does or why the township still does what the county could do? When you have a dozen taxing bodies from conservation districts to park districts to townships to cities to community colleges, special service areas, schools(heaven forbid in a non-consolidated area, rural fire districts, library districts, etc, is it any wonder that people can’t keep up with it all? You want to explain the general fund, vs. internal service funds vs. enterprise funds then explain bond calls on long term debt, fund balance ratios to the electorate when trying to put together an intelligent budget? I’m not saying the public shouldn’t know, but expecting any significant quantity of the public to actually participate and engage in the learning process enough to make an intelligent decision at the ballot box is the thing of fairy tales. If people can’t take the time to intelligently vote (informed voter) once every four years, how on earth do you make the case for teaching the public? You have to elect quality leaders. - Mountain Man - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:40 pm: Simple for me…it not right to be paying more taxes for property that is declining in value. - Anon - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 4:44 pm: ==But, that’s an issue for another day. Not really. It’s very much part of this discussion. See HB 268. - Rep. Ed Sullivan - Friday, Sep 16, 11 @ 6:20 pm: Shemp, I will not disagree that there are too many layers of government. The issue before us is that of an economy that is struggling therefore people are struggling to make ends meet. They have a very difficult time understanding why they have to pay more for an asset that has lost value. Many have no idea that the increase in taxes they pay are not tied to the value of the asset but the services they receive. I will not even begin to talk about whether the services are being provided at in an efficient manner. But I just disagree that we shouldn’t have referendums just because there are uninformed voters. By that logic should there be an issue competency test for people to run for office? In our democracy we have to take what we as individuals perceive as good and bad with this process. As I stated I think in these tough economic times local governments should have to make a case for increased spending. We certainly can disagree. Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.