Sustainable property tax relief

By BRENT EDISON

Bismarck

What a difference a political campaign makes. When the appointed tax commissioner announced for the office back in January, he declined to join the debate on property taxes, saying it was a legislative issue. Now, less than six weeks out from the election, Cory Fong is struggling to attach his name to a plan for property tax relief.

Rather than waiting with my finger in the wind like a career political operative, I came out in favor of property tax relief on the first day of the campaign. Every day since then, I have talked about the need for property tax relief and increased education funding.

In August, I proposed using part of the state's $527 million budget surplus to invest $125 million a year over a four year period to accomplish the following: Roll back property taxes, fund K-12 education, expand the homestead tax credit for seniors and disabled North Dakotans and halt double-digit college tuition increases.

Instead of just treating the symptoms, my proposal gets to the root cause of our state's escalating property taxes: the state's chronic under-funding of education. For years, the state's share of education funding has been dropping, forcing higher property tax collections at the local level to fund K-12 education.

To have truly sustainable property tax relief, we need to finally come to grips with this education funding problem that has been plaguing the state for years. Now is the time to do so. Our state's oil revenue and huge budget surplus provide a historic opportunity to provide truly sustainable property tax relief, fund our schools at the levels our children deserve and put a stop to college tuition increases that have given our college students the unwelcome distinction of having the third highest debt load in the nation.

(Edison is seeking election as tax commissioner. - Editor)