Flip-Flopping On Voter Approval of Taxes
When the Texas Legislature reconfigured the state’s school finance system in 2006, it enacted or increased state-level taxes in order to reduce local school property tax rates. But the legislature also allowed each school district to hold an election to increase the school property tax rate to generate additional local funds. This system of requiring voter approval of increased property tax rates appeared to be exactly what some groups and some publications had been clamoring for.
On the November 6, 2007, election date, in accordance with the new law, nearly 120 school districts around the state asked voters to approve higher property tax rates. In roughly 80 percent of these elections, voters approved the higher rates.
What was the reaction of the organizations and publications that have supported popular elections on property tax rates?
The Texas Public Policy Foundation, in an October 26, 2007, op-ed piece in the San Antonio Express News, accused school districts of “pilfering” the tax cut. This was despite the fact that any school property tax rate higher than the rate set by the state had to be approved by voters.
The Lone Star Report, in a November 16, 2007, op-ed piece, claimed that voters who had approved the higher tax rates across the state had been duped, that they had “…succumbed to the blandishments of education establishment spokesmen,” and that “some voters may well not have known what they were doing.” The op-ed concluded that “hardly any yea voters gave the matter the attention it deserved.”
It’s obvious that many of those who want voter approval of property tax rates – including municipal property tax rates – aren’t interested in voter approval as an end in itself. They are interested in lower taxes and smaller government at any cost. Voters who refuse to go along are accused of not paying attention, not knowing what they’re doing, and succumbing to the voices of big government.