Is A Lack Of State Funding Really The Problem With Local Property Taxes?
As we’ve debated the property tax issue in North Dakota many - including local officials who don’t want to admit that they’re the problem, liberals who want more central government control and “Republicans” like Governor John Hoeven who just want to throw money at the problem - claim that the problem has to do with too little state funding. But the simple fact of the matter is that despite increasing amounts of state spending at the local level, property taxes have still continued to skyrocket.
Courtesy of the North Dakota Policy Council, here’s the rise in state spending at the local level over the last decade:
And here’s skyrocketing property tax collections over the last two decades:
What this means is that state spending at the local level has increased, but local spending funded by local property taxes has increased even faster. Meaning the problem with property taxes is not a paucity of funding from the state, but rather out of control spending at the local level.
Rein in that spending, and we can rein in property taxes.
