A couple weeks ago, a letter was forwarded to the North Dakota Watchdog Network from a resident in Mandan – the resident found it appalling that the Mandan School District was telling taxpayers that the state required local school districts to levy 60 mills worth of property tax for the school district for its General Fund.
Since then we have gotten reports of similar letters being issued by school districts around the state.
At issue is one statement in particular – quote “By levying the 60 mills required by the state, the Mandan School District will receive an additional $525,433 from local taxpayers.”
This statement raised a red flag with the Mandan resident who forwarded it (and us), because it has been widely thought that the result of the new education funding formula which integrated the state property tax buy-down program had a cap on the General Fund mill levy, but not a required mill levy.
After some investigating, we found out that while the state does not require school districts explicitly to levy 60 mills for the district’s General Fund, because of the the way the legislature created the funding formula school districts that do not levy the full 60 mills would lose out on state funding.
In essence, the “reform” the legislature put in place during the 2013 session punishes school districts that do not level the assumed 60 mill General Fund levy.
While it is very confusing as to why the legislature took this route, the fact is that any law that reduces state funding for education if a school district does not keep property taxes up at a higher level is bad for taxpayers, students, administrators, and teachers.
With all the money state has been sending to local school districts to drive down property taxes, it is disheartening that there is a provision in the state law that can create the perception the state is setting a local mill levy.
Caps on how high a mill levy or how much tax is levied would be fine – but to tell school districts “if you don’t levy 60 mills, you will lose out on state money” is just not good policy for anyone involved.
Local government needs to be empowered to cut property taxes and given reasons to go beyond what the state demands.
Whether intended or unintended, the state’s approach to property tax relief is doing the opposite of what needs to be done – which is empowering local government to rein in their own property taxes above and beyond what the state is attempting to do.
