Special elections to pass tax increases
The local government practice of calling special elections to pass tax increases is shameful. These special elections are not about some dire emergency. They are about passing taxes in the dark.
Local special elections for tax increases occur frequently across the state.
Cities, counties, and school districts know from their associations that it is much easier to pass a tax in a special election than in a general election. Why? They know voter turnout for a special election will be far lower than in a general election. Some voters just do not turn out for single issue elections, and many voters will not even be aware of the special election.
Employees of the local government and their families are far more likely to turn out and vote for the tax in a special election than other voters. With low turnout, this voting block is far more likely to carry a tax increase to victory in a special election.
It is not uncommon for a city that wants more money for a building project to dedicate a small portion of the new tax to support police officers, firefighters, or both. Why? To increase the number of government employees who will turn out to vote for more taxes.
Finding an example of a current special election didn’t take long. We just looked for recent articles and found an upcoming special election in the Highland School District. The Highland School is located in north central Arkansas. The proposed property tax increase is for a $30 million building project.
Three factors make the Highland School special election a good (bad) example of what local governments are doing.
- First, the special election will occur only three months after its voters said “NO” to the tax in the general election.
- Second, the November vote wasn’t even close. The tax lost by nearly a 2/3rds margin. According to the newspaper, only 37.2% of voters favored the tax with a vote of 1357 FOR and 2290 AGAINST.
- Third, the school district chose February 14 for the date of the special election. Who expects an election on Valentine’s Day? In fact, many people won’t even remember it is Valentine’s Day until late and then scramble to do something for a spouse or sweetheart. Of course, that is the point – cities, counties, and school districts want the voter turnout to be as low as possible so they will have a much greater chance of passing a tax.
We are not picking on the Highland School District; they are just one among many. But we are picking on cities, counties, and school districts because so many care more about passing taxes than they do about the integrity of the election process.
In 2017, the Arkansas House of Representatives came within one vote of sending a bill to the Governor to ban local governments from using the special elections for tax increases.[i] A similar effort in 2021 also failed.[ii] Cities, counties, and school districts are a strong lobby to overcome in the fight for election reform.
As of the time of this article being written, there have been no bills filed to stop local governments from continuing to abuse special elections.
Will your Senator and Representative file legislation to stop this unethical practice, or will they stay silent in the face of opposition by city, county, and school district associations that want to rob taxpayers?
[i] https://conduitnews.com/2017/05/22/how-rep-james-sturch-killed-special-election-reform-by-walking-out/
[ii] https://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/Bills/Detail?id=HB1368&ddBienniumSession=2021%2F2021R
