QWeTl2017— My Turn: For decades, state has played major role in high property taxes
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Opinion > Columns (/Opinion/Columns/)
My Turn: For decades, state has
played major role in high property
taxes
By BILL HERMAN
For the Monitor
Wednesday, February 22, 2017
We are in what has for a long time been one of my favorite times of year. It is the time
when we gather with our friends and neighbors for annual town and school district
meetings to determine the course our communities will take for the coming year.
Perhaps more than most, | enjoy these activities because | have been an active participant
since 1977, when | first served as a supervisor of the checklist.
For the ensuing 39 years, I have been either town moderator, school district moderator, a
selectman or a town administrator.
One of the reasons | enjoy these meetings is because you never know how they may turn
out, what decisions will be made or what people might say.
A few weeks ago while attending my town’s deliberative town meeting, | was particularly
surprised to hear a state representative tell voters there was nothing the Legislature can
do to reduce property taxes.
| was surprised because arguably there has not been an entity that has had a bigger
impact on local property taxes in the past two decades than the Legislature.
One only has to look to the early 1980s when, in response to the Claremont education
lawsuit, the Legislature reached into what had been the local property tax, claimed a part
of it as its own, and established the “state education property tax” as “state” funds to meet
the state's legal obligation toward education.
Since then, the state has held a portion of the property tax as its own.
In Auburn, the state education property tax represents approximately 12 percent of the
town’s total tax rate - not a small percentage for sure.
Even if it stopped there, that would be significant enough. But it doesn’t. In the ensuing
years, the Legislature, has:
hitto/Awww.concordmonitor.com/The-NH-Legislature-anc-property-taxes-8207608 1/4
