“Not a politician, but a business man.” It sounds good during a political campaign, and it’s a common theme in how both the governor and I view ourselves as we take our respective roles in public office.

As business people, our pride is in the ability to use our experience to recognize a good deal from a bad one. A bad deal that we’ve been hearing a lot about lately is the sales pitch that getting rid of municipal revenue sharing is going to make Maine more attractive for businesses.

In the 1970s, as Maine realized that there was a growing problem with an excessive burden of property taxes that both hurt the middle-class and discouraged home ownership, revenue sharing was introduced to reduce that burden and keep more locally generated revenues in the municipality where they were created.

When an entrepreneur decides to open a business in a city or town in Maine, the municipality works with that business to make sure that issues such as potential codes violations and paperwork are taken care of before opening. When the doors open, the municipality plows the roads so that patrons can make their way to shop at that location, which generates sales tax.

Eventually, when that road is need of repair, the municipality (local taxpayers) pays for the road to be fixed. Emergencies? That’s right, you guess it — the local police and fire are on the way.

By understanding all that local property tax-paying residents do to support the eventual creation of sales tax revenue and how little the state has in the process (other than collecting the sales tax), it is clear that the small portion that is returned to the municipality is not, as some falsely claim, “state aid.” It is a portion of revenue collected for doing the work that makes that economic success possible.

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Because service centers such as Waterville generate more sales tax, our portion of revenue sharing is greater than smaller towns that produce less. This helps offset the costs that Waterville residents pay to repair and plow roads that folks from Oakland, Sidney, Winslow, Fairfield and beyond, drive on each day to keep producing the economic activity that we know is so crucial for the success of all Mainers. By keeping some of those dollars local, we ensure that they are spent more wisely.

As a conservative, I’ve always believed that, like a business, the larger government becomes the harder it is to maintain efficiencies. In fact, wise stewardship and efficient use of tax money tends to have an inverse relationship to the level of government. Starting with the federal level, efficiency increases down each step until we get to the local municipalities, where dollars are counted as precious amid so many roads to be fixed, streets to be plowed, trash to be collected.

If you really believe that your tax dollars will be spent more efficiently at the state and county levels, take a look and see what each entity actually spends money on.

Since 2011, the city of Waterville has spent more than $1.3 million to cover the cost of fixing state-aid roads. These are roads that the state used to pay for. It was around the same time that Gov. John Baldacci began the attack on municipal revenue sharing that the state decided to tell municipalities that these roads were now their responsibility.

Municipalities are overstaffed, you say? The state of Maine has roughly 22 employees per 1,000 citizens. The city of Waterville has roughly seven but still manages to collect taxes, pave roads, assist local business, administer general assistance, remove snow and pick up the trash. Last time I checked, that list was 99.9 percent longer than the one that showed what the state was doing both for local businesses and invidual families.

I would ask our legislators to stop referring to revenue sharing as “state aid.” It is our share of profits reaped from aiding the state in generating the revenues it needs to survive.

Local control is coveted dearly by Mainers because it is the most efficient and effective use of generating much-needed services with our hard-earned dollars. Tax movement is not a tax cut.

The governor’s budget has some forward-thinking and bold initiatives that Mainers have been waiting for. Shifting the tax burden to property owners isn’t one of them.

Nick Isgro is the mayor of Waterville.


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