The Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Housing and Economic Development is effectively increasing our county property taxes — collected through our community’s property tax system — to fund a state housing program. Many expected the Taxation Committee to handle this, since it understands the unintended consequences of shifting costs between state and local taxes. Instead, leadership assigned the initiative to another committee, which drafted its own bill keeping state revenues intact.

LD 2124 restructures the state property transfer tax collected by county registries when property changes ownership. Currently, 10% of that tax subsidizes county registries and provides some relief to local property tax burdens; the remaining 90% goes to the state. Twenty percent of their 90% — about $11 million — is now uncommitted and deposited in the state’s general fund.

Yet this committee proposes raising $1.14 million annually for its programs without reducing state revenue. To do so, it would reallocate 1.8% of the tax out of the counties’ 10% share — shifting the $1.14 million burden onto local communities instead of using a portion of the $11 million available in the general fund.

Legislators should not fund new state spending by reallocating money already committed to relieving property tax.

Stephen Gorden
Cumberland County Commissioner