Wednesday, November 01, 2006

As always, there are amendments

For any of you interested in Alabama politics, there are 3 amendments on the upcoming ballot. #1 and #3 appear to be local issues that, due to the idiocy of our current constitution, require a statewide vote. #2 is a bit more confusing to me. It appears that it will raise local property taxes in certain, undisclosed locations around the state in order to properly fund schools. I am, of course, in favor of using property taxes to fund school instead of using the ever popular (and regressive) sales tax. However, I wish the amendment was a bit clearer. I fear that anything that even hints at raising property taxes will be voted down.

UPDATE: from what I can gather from reading this RSA article, combined with Tal's comment, I'm assuming that this amendment will change the funding requirement from allowing the equivalent of 10 mills from local property tax, to actually requiring the collection of 10 mills of property tax to fund education.

1 comment:

Tal said...

State law requires that 10 mills of property tax be collected in each school district to receive state education funding or if 10 mills is not assessed then that gap be made up with local taxes (sales tax etc...). There are only a few counties that do this, but the measure will force districts to asses 10 mills instead of using things like the sales tax which are much more regressive. It is one of the most human tax increases that could have been proposed and will effect very few people. I have high hopes that it will pass.