Act 60’s Effect on Dorset, Vermont featured in today’s Wall Street Journal

The Vermont state property tax has made the front page of the New England Journal section of today’s Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, February 18, 1998 and it’s well worth reading. Writer Jeffry Krasner has done a good job of laying out the complex issue for the average reader, with the intended (and unintended) consequences of the tax upon one small town with low student population and high valuation.

The effects of the tax and the formula on Dorset should be a reality check for the New Hampshire legislature, which is getting a full court press last week and this from out-of-state experts to adopt a similar designer school funding law.

Wait until they see what the “property poor” towns do at budget time in beefing up their budgets and the resulting tension which develops between towns. To quote a Dorset inn keeper from the article “The hope is after year one, Act 60 is going to be repealed”.

Maine started out in 1974 with only about 36 actively rebellious “pay-in” towns, but a Maine Municipal Association survey less than 2 years later reported that the number of towns wanting repeal had grown to 300. The issue is state control of the local property tax, not “rich vs. poor” as the supporters of the tax would have people believe. It’s a “local vs.state control” issue.