GUEST COLUMN: Survey says: Pennsylvanians want to kill, not reduce, school property tax

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/05/guest_column_survey_says_penns.html#incart_2box_opinion_index.ssf

Brian Fake, of Upper Mount Bethel Township, is a member of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition

"Unfortunately, the only poll that really mattered was the one taken on the House floor on Wednesday." This statement was made by Pennsylvania state Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, referring to the passage of House Bill 504, a property tax relief bill, which took place May 13. I'll come back to this in a bit. Back in March, The Express-Times/lehighvalleylive.com conducted an online poll. The question: Is Gov. Wolf's tax tradeoff a fair way to help homeowners? A resounding number of people (more than 80 percent) chose: "No. Property taxes can always creep back up. The only solution is to eliminate the school property tax."

 This wasn't the first poll I had seen where a good majority of people wanted school property tax elimination. This triggered the "Scooby Doo" in me to find out what people across Pennsylvania thought about three popular school property tax proposals: Gov. Tom Wolf's, which would raise sales and income taxes and increase what's covered by the sales tax, for $3.8 billion in property tax relief; Rep. Stan Saylor's, which would raise sales and income taxes to generate $4.9 billion in property tax relief; and HB/SB 76, known as the Property Tax Independence Act, which would raise sales and incomes tax and eliminate school property taxes.

I wanted to get a real feel for the "relief vs. elimination" argument from citizens, not legislators. I'm not a bazillionaire so I signed up for an online polling service from one of the top online polling providers. I used all means of social media to get the word out about my survey. I placed hundreds of Facebook posts and Tweeted my butt off. Craigslist and eBay Classified ads galore. I made boatloads of comments in online newspapers and radio station forums (getting kicked out of quite a few for posting links to the survey). I emailed the entire General Assembly asking members to get their constituents involved.

All in all, it paid off. I received a total of 1,449 responses over a period of one month and once again, the clear choice was school property tax elimination (82.2 percent selected HB/SB 76). In full disclosure, I am a member of the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition, a group dedicated to the elimination of school property taxes. I mention this because I released the results of my survey on May 17 on the PTCC Facebook group page and a "conversation" ensued. The response that started out this piece came from this conversation.

Now, I don't know if Rep. Diamond wanted to sound self-serving or holier-than-thou, but that's the way it came off. Responses from my survey, the Express-Times poll and other polls and surveys indicate a majority of people would be willing to trade higher state and earned income taxes for complete elimination of school property taxes.

After years and years of election year promises and way too many House and Senate committee meetings to count, the political football that is school property tax reform is in the spotlight. With passage of House Bill 504, the state House has punted the ball to the Senate.

The question is, is Harrisburg listening to what the people want or are the special interests calling the plays?This brings to mind a quote from Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

" Look no further than the infamous2005 "midnight pay raise" scandal which ultimately lead to the downfall of many in Harrisburg. People have the power to shape and mold what comes out of Harrisburg, but your local legislators need to hear from you. Ten years after the pay raise scandal maybe it's about time to start thinking about cleaning house again!YYou can download the results of the statewide school property tax survey at https://app.box.com/Survey-Results.

 

Last edited by Common Sense (5/24/2015 3:28 pm)