If there was a mandate for the 2009 Legislature, it was to provide property tax relief and reform.

Lawmakers did just that on Wednesday, spending $259 million to buy down school district mill levies. Then they tacked on $100 million in personal and corporate income tax cuts.

The package was a long time coming, forwarded to Gov. John Hoeven with five days left in the Legislature's 80-day limit. But the property tax relief and reform was never really in question. The differences, between House and Senate, Democrats and Republicans, were over the details and the income tax cuts.

Details that harried the approval of the tax package included the deadline for school district levying more than 110 mills. That deadline was moved from 2012 to 2015 to ensure passage. And then there was the question of whether the income tax cuts would have a sunset date or not. The answer:not.

Whether to give income tax relief was the bigger question. The voters in November rejected an initiated measure to provide themselves with income tax cuts. Conventional wisdom has been that voters felt property tax relief and reform were more important.

Lawmakers who opposed income tax portions of the bill did so on three fronts: 1) the voters had spoken, 2) it would be better to increase property tax relief and 3) permanent reductions in income taxes could leave the state's budget short in the future.

True, the voters had spoken. But the state's financial situation, because of the federal stimulus package among other things, had changed dramatically since the voters went to the polls in November. That vote taken now might likely go the other way.

Cutting income taxes by $100 million, and not spending that money on property tax relief, does expand the range of people seeing tax relief.

And, not reducing taxes when you're flush, so you don't have to raise them in the future, might be expedient, but it also takes unfair advantage of taxpayers.

All in all, the tax package does what it needs to do: return excessive tax collection to the people and reform property tax.

If any part of the package is worrisome, it's the property tax reform. The plan is to substitute state revenues for property taxes in school districts, in effect, buying down mill levies. While that might not be a problem when the state's looking at a $1.2 billion surplus, it might when the economy inevitably takes a downturn. There's also a risk cities and counties will raise their property taxes, and over time eat up the 75 mills of school district buydown.

Further, as state lawmakers continue to pick up local education costs, there's going to be a desire to have more control of local school issues from the House and Senate chambers. It will be something to watch for.

The Legislature has accomplished one of its major tasks. It has provided significant tax relief for the people of the state. While reasonable people may differ on the details, the final result works, and works reasonably well.

Thank you.